A Night in the Movies
by Sophia Hawkins
Summary: AU. A conglomerate of movie moments recreated with Matt Casey and Kelly Severide and (occasionally) the rest of the crew from Firehouse 51. MASSIVE SPOILERS.
1. Chapter 1

A Night in the Movies

A/N: This is a very different kind of story. It started as an experiment to see how well it would work to put Casey and Severide in the places of lead roles in some classic and not so classic movies, with few changes to the dialogue and plot when possible, all the while making them feel 'in character'. For the movies referenced, some are old, some are very old, and I hope everybody likes the way the stories turned out. The first chapter has two separate stories because they are both shorter compared to the rest. The first one is a real tearjerker, and I thought it would be better to put a second installment with it to lift the mood a bit. Especially given all the different films referenced, all standard disclaimers apply, don't own so don't sue, hope you enjoy, please read and review. The titles and years of the movies listed will be mentioned above each story.

* * *

Wings (1927)

* * *

Kelly Severide exited his plane and went to the farmhouse the enemy ship had made a crash landing into. He wanted to look the enemy soldier he'd brought down right in the eyes. As he made his way to the house, he saw one of the plane's flags still attached to the rear of it. He ripped the enemy flag off and carried it with him as a trophy, and entered the house, through the large hole the plane had made in the front wall.

The people who lived there were gathered around the front room, and the pilot from the enemy plane had been removed from the cockpit and was laid out on a table, mortally wounded. Kelly felt his eyes widen as he saw it was _not_ an enemy soldier, it was his own friend and comrade, Matt Casey. The blonde man weakly turned his head and offered a faint smile and just barely croaked out, "Kelly."

"Oh my God...Matt!" he screamed in the horror of realization. He ran over to the table and looked down at the man he'd forced down. How could this have happened?

Matt's eyes looked towards the ceiling and he weakly tried to raise his hand as he explained, "I stole the plane...thought I could get across the lines."

Kelly collapsed beside him and took his best friend in his arms, he felt Casey's blood on him, he felt the lacerations in Matt's scalp as he almost compulsively stroked over the back of his head.

"I'll get a doctor..." he stood up and turned around and noticed nobody had moved from where they stood, he thought he was going crazy, why wasn't anybody helping?

There was a soldier there, who explained to Kelly, "If it were any use I would've gone myself. It's only minutes."

Kelly's heart sank. He knew it was true, and yet, it couldn't be true. This couldn't be how it ended.

Matt lay on the table, no strength to move, but he managed a small smile and weakly said, "Don't go, Kelly, just stay here with me for a little while."

Kelly felt his eyes welling up with tears as he looked down at him, and collapsed on top of his best friend, one arm wrapped around him, the other hand cradled around the back of his head. He pulled himself up enough to look Matt in the eyes and told him, "I was just trying to bring one more enemy plane down for you..." His throat swelled with tears and the ones in his eyes were starting to spill over.

Tears were also starting to form in Matt's eyes as he looked up at his friend and weakly tried to assure him, "Don't, Kelly, oh please don't, this wasn't your fault."

Kelly absentmindedly tightened his hold on Casey as the two briefly argued over Severide's guilt in what had taken place.

Matt tried to smile a little more reassuringly and told Kelly, "You didn't shoot me down, Kelly...you _did_ bring down an enemy plane, don't you see?"

There weren't any more words. Kelly leaned down and kissed Matt on the side of his mouth as Casey weakly wrapped his arm around the back of Kelly's neck. After a couple seconds, Kelly pulled back and looked down at Casey, trying futilely to smile through his tears. "You know nothing in the world means as much to me as your friendship..."

Matt responded, "I knew it, all the time...all set?"

Before Kelly even had time to question the last words, he felt as much as he heard Matt's arm fall lifelessly to his side on the table.

Kelly broke down sobbing, still clinging to his lifeless friend. After a moment, knowing what he must do now, he pulled back, grabbed Matt's lifeless wrist, slung his arm over his shoulders, lifted Matt's body off the table, carried him out of the house, and walked off to find a suitable place for a proper burial.

* * *

Rolling Thunder (1977)

* * *

Matt Casey followed Kelly Severide into his bedroom, just barely blocking out the family conversation that was taking place in the living room. It had been an awkward dinner and an awkward conversation, a whole family of people that Kelly hardly even recognized anymore, talking about things that didn't mean anything to either man.

"I found them," Matt told him.

"Who?" Kelly asked.

"The men who killed Gabby and Louie." The men who had ambushed him in his own home, wanting to rob him of the silver dollars he'd been awarded after the 8 years he, and several others, Kelly included, spent forgotten in a POW camp. The men who were such lowlives, to get the silver dollars they rammed his hand down the garbage disposal, and shot his wife and son right in front of him. The doctors had replaced his hand with a prosthetic hook, and he'd spent weeks in physical therapy during his recovery, learning how to use it for everyday tasks, how to dress himself, how to grab things. Once he was released from the hospital he'd spent hours of his own physical therapy, learning how to load and shoot his guns with it, how to still be able to hit his targets. He'd been preparing for this day, and now the time had come.

Kelly slowly turned his head and looked at Casey. No words were exchanged. Then he said, almost disconnectedly, "I'll just get my gear." He went to the closet, got out his bag, filled it with ammo, and got down his riot gun. He changed back into his military uniform and the two men headed downstairs where the entire family was still sitting around the living room visiting, paying almost no mind whatsoever to the two men who left with no word other than Kelly's simple 'Bye, Pops' to his father. Benny Severide, who didn't show any visible signs of concern or question, seemed to have a better idea of what was going on than anyone else in the house. He didn't try to stop his son, but there was a silent mutual understanding between them.

* * *

The men who had killed Casey's family were holed up in a whorehouse, so as to not draw suspicion, Kelly went in the front door and asked for a woman. He got a skinny brunette who answered to the name of Candy, and they went to a room, where he made small talk bartering about the price of her services, and he laid back on the bed like an impotent bump and let her do what she thought she needed to get things moving along, all the while he kept his clothes on, had no physical response to her touch whatsoever, and he just kept his ear open for Casey's signal. Soon there was a tap on the wall, and he subtly slipped his arm under the bed and dragged out his bag and started taking everything out one piece at a time, knowing the final showdown was about to take place.

A couple minutes later there was the sound of gunfire from down the hall, and Kelly shot up on the bed, grabbed the parts to his gun and quickly put it together.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" the woman asked him.

Without even a glance at her, Kelly finished assembling his gun and answered in a deadpan tone, "Gonna go kill a whole bunch of people."

Out in the hall Casey was already making his rounds. He kept his 12 gauge shotgun in his hand as he pulled doors open with his prosthetic hook. Nobody this side of the border knew who he was so it had been easy to inquire about the whereabouts of the gang of killers that had murdered his son, and now it was his turn to ambush them. He threw a door open, and as soon as he caught sight of one of the men, he opened fire. Women were running from room to room screaming, trying to get out of the line of fire, and one by one the men came out of the rooms. Casey shot another one and he fell back. Kelly came out in the hall at this time and went to another door, kicked it open and saw three men in a card game, he shot two before the third got to him, during which he dropped his gun and settled for punching the guy in the face, he fell back towards the bed and reached for a knife, but Kelly grabbed it before he could and stabbed the man in the throat, then dropped the knife and walked back out.

Casey put a round of buckshot in another man, when somebody else fired and Casey felt his shoulder explode in a burning pain. He fell to the ground but quickly got to his feet and headed up the stairs to the second floor. Kelly came around the corner with his gun and shot the man who'd put a bullet in Casey.

Upstairs, Casey had switched to his Smith and Wesson model 28 revolver once he ran out of ammo in his shotgun. A man came out a door, Casey recognized him and shot him. Kelly came around the other corner and blasted him with his shotgun, and the man fell to the floor. The two of them ran back around the corner and headed for the stairs, Kelly skidded across the landing and crouched down with his back against the wall to reload. Casey chanced a glance down the stairs and drew back quickly as they were met with a round of gunfire flying up towards them. Casey reached in his jacket pocket and took out spare ammo for Kelly's gun and tossed it to him, and hastily moved to reload his own gun, all the while the leader of the gang downstairs was yelling obscenities at them to come down and die.

As both men reloaded their guns, they looked at each other and knew this was the moment they came for. Kelly pushed back against the wall to stand up straight, as did Matt, and when the gunfire downstairs had ceased for a second, they took advantage of it and charged down the stairs firing. Men were firing at them from all directions, they fired back. Casey hit the ground running and opened fire on anybody shooting at him, he got shot again and screamed in pain as he fell back against the wall, but still got another round off. One of them shot Kelly as he was coming down the stairs, he doubled around in pain and hit the floor and rolled over, but even on his back he was able to drop the man who'd shot him. He crawled along on the floor to advance to his next target. The side of Casey's shirt was stained with blood but he saw the leader coming at him with his own gun ready to shoot, and Casey shot first. The man fell back against the wall, the front of his own shirt stained with blood. Casey got to his feet, walked over to the man, and promptly shot him three more times, then the gun clicked signaling the end of the bullets. Casey looked at his gun almost in disbelief and dropped it on the counter.

It was all over now, Casey stepped over the dead bodies and the broken glass from the bottles of beer and whiskey that had been shot to pieces, and looked down at Kelly, who was seated on the floor, his back pressed against the bar and he was also bleeding out. Casey grabbed Kelly's arm, pulled him to his feet and slung Kelly's arm over his shoulders.

"Come on, let's get out of here," he told Severide as the two of them staggered towards the door and walked out into the night, neither knowing if they would live long enough to get to a doctor or even back home, or if they would bleed out in the car on the way, but both of them finally knowing peace for the first time in eight years.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: A few variations on the dialogue this time.

* * *

Vampyr (1932)

* * *

Matt Casey had been traveling the countryside on foot for most of the day and he saw the sun was going down, it would soon be night and he didn't want to spend a night out in the elements. He looked ahead and saw a small inn by the docks, if he was lucky maybe there'd be a room available. As he approached the inn he passed by an older man who walked right by him without acknowledging him, carrying a large scythe over his shoulder as he headed down towards the dock. Matt thought nothing of it and knocked on the door. From above he heard a woman's voice, and looked up and saw the innkeeper sticking her head out a window on the second floor, telling him to come around to the other side.

He did, and she let him in. From outside he heard a loud clanging, and looked out the window and saw the man with the scythe at the dock ringing a bell fastened to a post. He was curious what it meant but he was honestly too tired to care, he paid the woman for a room and by a faint candlelight she showed him to a room upstairs.

"Goodnight," she said as she showed him in.

"Goodnight," he replied as she left and closed the door behind her, plunging him into near darkness.

From another room he could hear somebody talking loudly, but the words were too incoherent for him to make out. All he wanted to do was go to bed, and he would almost bet he could sleep through the rantings and ravings of the man next door.

He did sleep for a while, but it didn't seem long. He wasn't sure what had woken him up but he sat up in his bed and he saw a man enter his room, an older man who he had never seen before.

"What do you want?" Casey demanded to know.

But the man didn't answer, it was as if he didn't even see Matt. And then suddenly, he raised a finger and demanded, "Quiet...she mustn't die, you understand?" He took out a package wrapped in brown paper and twine and set it down, and left the room. Casey took a moment to consider that perhaps he had just been dreaming, but he got up and found the package, and in the moonlight pouring in through the windows he saw writing on the package.

"To be opened upon my death"

Matt wasn't sure what was going on, but he hopped out of bed, got dressed, crept downstairs and made his way out into the night to see if he could find some answers.

Somewhere in the distance, certain noises stuck out to him. Dogs barking, howling, a familiar sound of a blade chopping the earth and dirt being flung, somebody somewhere close by was digging a grave. He looked around but saw no one. But in the light from the moon that poured down on the road, he _did_ see shadows, shadows of people one by one running along into the night. He followed the shadows through the countryside, and came to an estate where a forlorn mansion sat, looking abandoned, and yet something told Matt that there were people in it. He headed on up to the house, and found a window to peer in. There wasn't any sign of people around on the first floor, but he looked up the stairs, and there were shadows. Shadows of an old man, and some feet behind him, another man with a rifle aimed at him. Casey ran around to the door and beat on it.

"Open up! Hurry, let me in!"

From inside there was the sound of somebody coming. A small light, an older man, he guessed the caretaker, coming to the door.

"What is it?" the man demanded to know as he unlocked the door.

Matt rushed in and told him, "Hurry, they're trying to kill him!" He didn't even know who 'he' was or for that matter who 'they' were, but he knew they were running out of time. Casey and the other man headed for a set of doors leading to the next room, but they were blocked, there was a weight against them, they went around another way and saw the old man sprawled on the floor, and beside him was a toppled candelabra, the four candles were still burning, the melted wax already pooled on the floor. In the candlelight as Casey picked up the candelabra to set it upright, he recognized him as the old man in his room at the inn, and though there were no visible wounds on him, it was obvious the man was dying.

The village doctor wouldn't get there in time, there was nothing to do but to make the man comfortable. They propped his head up and Casey spooned small amounts of water into the old man's mouth, during which time he said nothing. There was a sound of footsteps approaching, and Matt looked up and saw a young blonde haired woman, he guessed the old man's daughter, enter the room with a look of horror on her face.

"Is he dying?" she asked.

"I'm afraid so," he answered.

She knelt down beside her father, and he offered a faint smile at her, and then he was gone.

"My father's dead," the woman said mournfully, "and my sister is dying."

"Where is she?" Matt asked.

"Upstairs," she answered. "The doctor has been sent for."

"Show me," Casey said.

"We'll all go," the caretaker, who Matt had learned was named Christopher Herrmann, said as he picked up a candelabra with four candles burning.

The three of them climbed the stairs and Casey could hear the mumbled prayers of a woman. They entered the bedchamber and he saw a nun seated beside the bed, bent over her rosary beads. In the bed there was another blonde haired woman, her eyes closed, her skin pale, her breathing faint. Suddenly she writhed around and cried out in her sleep, "The blood! The blood!"

The younger sister went over to the bed and tried to rouse her. "Leslie? Can you hear me?"

The sick woman slowly opened her eyes and tried to manage a small smile, "Sylvie..."

Matt saw the caretaker go over to the nun, and he strained to hear them.

"How's she doing?"

"Poorly."

"Her pulse?"

"Weak. I'm afraid she _is_ dying."

Matt shook his head. What a horrible tragedy to stumble into. He was asked to leave the room and he headed back downstairs and saw some people had come to take the father's body away. Now he remembered the package he'd found back at the inn, which he'd been carrying inside his jacket. He took out the small package, unwrapped the twine and opened the paper. It was a book on the history of vampyres, that explained what they were, and who their victims were, and how they sought out their victims, and how the bite marks of a vampire were a sign of damnation.

* * *

Leslie opened her eyes and told her sister, "I wish I could die."

"Don't say that, Leslie," Sylvie said, horrified.

But her older sister was adamant, "I know, I'm lost, I'm damned!"

Sylvie gasped, "Sister!"

The nun turned around and tried not to react at the new marks on Leslie's throat. She went to the bedside table and douse a rag in antiseptic and cleaned the wound, Leslie gasped at the sensation.

* * *

As Matt continued to read the book, he found a passage about how the bite of a vampire can turn one of their victims also into a vampire, who lusts for blood of their most dearly loved. Entire families could be wiped out by a newfound vampire, even whole villages if they weren't stopped.

* * *

Leslie had appeared to fall asleep for a while but shortly after she opened her eyes and looked over at her sister seated beside her, and Leslie's eyes widened and her mouth opened to a fiendish grin, she sat up and started to lean over and just started to part her teeth when she heard other people coming. Interrupted, she laid back down and cursed the loss of her sister's blood. As the nun and the caretaker returned, Sylvie was sent out of the room to await the doctor's arrival. She went downstairs and sat in a chair, looking despondently at the ceiling and questioned, "Why does the doctor always come at night?"

In the next room, Matt Casey had just started to nod off while reading the book, when he heard somebody at the door. The caretaker came and greeted the doctor, a strange looking old man with glasses and wild gray hair and a black mustache, he was dressed all in black. There was something about him that unsettled Matt immediately. He heard Herrmann the caretaker speaking with him quietly.

"How is she doing?"

"Not well at all."

"Oh? Why is that?"

"She was walking in her sleep again last night, we found her out on the grounds."

"Let's go take a look at her."

"She has another one of those marks on her neck."

Matt decided he better see what was going on and followed the men upstairs. Leslie looked even worse now than she had earlier.

"Can't she be saved?" he asked the doctor.

The older man looked at him skeptically and responded, "Perhaps, but she needs blood. Are you willing to give her your own?"

Matt looked over at the sick woman laying in the bed. Before he answered, the doctor withdrew the necessary instruments from his bag and commanded Casey, "Come, I will draw your blood."

* * *

Matt felt dizzy and weak after having his blood taken to give to Leslie. He sat in a chair outside her bedroom, his sleeve rolled up to his elbow, and waited for the sensation to pass, but he felt horrible from the ordeal. He felt sick, fatigued, gradually he felt like reality was slipping away from him.

"Doctor," he weakly called out as he looked at his arm, "doctor!"

"What is it?" the old man asked as he came to the door.

"I'm losing blood," Casey said concernedly.

"Nonsense, it's right here!" the doctor said with what sounded like a laugh, and slammed the door, presenting a barricade between them.

Casey felt so weak and tired, he could hardly even think. He closed his eyes, and dreamed, of a skull, and a skeletal hand clutching a bottle of poison. And somewhere he heard a voice saying that vampires will try to drive their victims to suicide, ensuring ownership of their damned souls. He also heard a voice mention how vampires will use both their victims _and_ criminals to follow their every command, how a village doctor had been possessed by a vampire and gone on to commit atrocities unconscionable before his spree was finally ended. An entire village had come under a plague that had been attributed to a vampire who was an old woman, who had been evil all her life and upon her death sold her soul to the Evil One and thus became a vampire, and her murderous reign of terror continued until her body had been dug up in the cemetery at dawn and a stake driven through her heart, nailing her evil soul to the solid ground.

He felt somebody shaking him and he heard Herrmann the caretaker telling her, "Come quickly, something terrible is happening!"

Casey pulled himself to his feet and ran into the bedroom and he saw the doctor standing close to the bed, and Leslie turned on her side clutching a small bottle of poison, just about to drink it. Before he even realized what he was doing, he moved right past the doctor and knocked the bottle out of Leslie's hand, he turned and the doctor had disappeared out of the room.

"He was trying to kill the girl," Herrmann said, "he must be stopped!"

Casey ran out of the room, down the stairs and out into the night, trying to follow the doctor's trail, but he was nowhere to be found. Despite this, Casey kept running, and he followed the sound of the dirt being dug up, and he eventually stopped running and came to a small building and walked in. He stopped in his tracks and felt his heart leap in his throat at the sight before him of a coffin with a shroud draped over it, the lid was leaned against the wall, with writing etched on it about coming from and returning to the dust, and there was a window in the lid. Casey grabbed the corner of the shroud and drew it back, and found himself staring down at his own face. He saw himself laid out in the coffin, flowers laid in a ring surrounding his head, his eyes wide open in a permanent fixture of death, looking straight up at him.

Some men entered the room, and Casey saw one of them grab a hand drill, another grabbed the lid of the coffin, and placed it on top, and now Casey found himself staring up through the window in it. Now _he_ was in the coffin, able to see everything through the window but unable to move, unable to blink, unable to talk or scream for help. He saw the hand drill and heard the noise it made as it drilled the screws down to hold the lid in place. Then he felt the coffin being lifted up, and saw the ceiling above, the walls, the lights, he saw himself being carried through the doorway, out into the daylight, past the church, he saw the church, the windows towards the top, the whole sanctuary seemed to be placed on its side. He saw the man carry his coffin out to the cemetery, and felt the coffin being lowered.

Casey heard a shovel digging and felt a breeze blow on his skin, and he opened his eyes and realized he had fallen asleep on a bench near the cemetery. The sun was coming up, it was morning. He got up, and followed the sound, and he saw Herrmann prying the marble slab up that covered the grave of a woman who had died several years ago. The slab had been broken into two large pieces some time ago, first one piece came up, then another, and the caretaker stepped down into the grave, he handed Casey up several boards from the coffin, then he raised the lid, and they both saw the woman buried there, looking even now so many years later as if she had just been buried. Casey handed down to the caretaker a long metal stake, and he gripped it in both hands and positioned it just right and plunged it through the old woman's heart. Suddenly, both men saw the corpse of the woman change into a skeleton.

Back at the manor, Leslie opened her eyes wide and sat up in bed and told the nun seated beside her, "I'm free, my soul feels strong!"


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: This will be a 2-parter, half of the story-line from the movie has been omitted, the dialogue is largely verbatim.

* * *

House on Haunted Hill (1959)

* * *

"Well, where is everybody?"

"This isn't a very warm welcome, is it?"

"Only the ghosts in this house are glad we're here."

"Are we all strangers to each other?" Leslie Shay asked the group of people who had gathered into the strange old house along with her. The other guests turned towards her, then looked at one another. She addressed the other blonde woman, and the dark haired man, "Don't you two know each other?"

They looked at each other and he said, "I'm afraid I don't know your name."

"I'm Sylvie Brett," she said as she extended her hand.

"Kelly Severide," he replied as he shook it.

"Is Matt Casey a friend of yours?" Leslie asked.

Kelly turned towards her, "I've heard of him, but I've never met him."

Sylvie added, "I work for one of his companies but I've never seen him."

"I've never met the man either, just a phone call," Leslie said, and turned to the doctor, Peter Mills, "Do you know him?"

Mills laughed self consciously, "No."

Leslie turned to the 5th guest, Christopher Herrmann, a very serious looking man, the one who had made the comment about the ghosts. The one, who it turned out, as was known around town by reputation, was the legal owner of the house, and had owned it several years ago when his brother, and sister-in-law, were both murdered in it. "Then you're the only one of us who does."

The older man shook his head and remarked, "I don't know him. All the details of renting the house were done by mail."

"He's quite wealthy, isn't he?" Peter asked.

"Millions," Shay answered.

"And uh...five wives I believe," he said.

"Four I think so far," Shay corrected him.

Mills looked around at the others and commented, "But a quarter million dollars is a little steep even for a millionaire." The five of them shared the common factor that they had all been invited by Matt Casey to spend the night in this gloomy old house that was supposedly haunted, that he'd rented for his wife's birthday party, and anyone who stayed the night would receive $50,000. It had been a strange invitation but they had all decided to come and see if it was for real.

Kelly looked around at the century old house with antique furniture, candles burning in wrought iron holders hanging from the walls with glass shades, a chandelier full of about 100 candles burning above them hanging from the ceiling. "If I was going to haunt anybody, this would certainly be the house I'd do it in."

From behind them they heard the sudden squeak of protesting hinges as the front door slammed shut and nobody was there.

"Who closed the door?" Sylvie asked.

Kelly went over and tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. The door itself, which had already been waiting open when they arrived, seemed to be made of solid steel. He turned back and something caught his eye, the chandelier above was moving unsteadily and it hovered right over Sylvie. In a split second decision, Kelly rushed over, grabbed Sylvie and pulled her away, the two of them pressed flat against the wall as the chandelier broke off its base and crashed to the floor right where they'd been standing.

From the second floor, Matt Casey peered down from the banister and observed his guests. Without a word, he silently retreated to the hall, and to the room where he and his wife were staying.

"Gabby, our guests are here and fortunately still alive, is your face on yet?" he called out to the bathroom.

The door opened and Gabby Dawson-Casey sauntered out in a dressing gown open at the waist and a shimmering bustier.

"Dust and dirt everywhere, and the water barely trickles," she complained in a sultry voice, "couldn't you have had the place cleaned?"

Casey smiled at his wife, "Atmosphere, darling, you know how ghosts are, they never tidy up. Now that's a very fetching outfit, but hardly suitable for a party."

Gabby looked at him with determined eyes and said simply, "I'm not going to the party."

"The spend the night ghost party was your idea, remember? Since it's going to cost me a quarter million dollars, I want you to have fun," Casey told her.

Coyly she replied, "The party _was_ my idea, until _you_ invited all the guests...why are they all strangers? Why none of our friends?"

"Friends?" Casey repeated the word like a foreign concept. "Do we have any friends?"

"No," Gabby smiled, "your jealousy took care of that."

"I had a reason for inviting each guest," Matt told her. "I wanted a kind of cross-section, from psychiatrist to typist, and from drunk to jet pilot. They all share one thing, they all need money. Now let's see if they're brave enough to earn it."

"Remember the fun we had when you poisoned me?" Casey asked his wife.

Gabby laughed heartily, then responded coyly, "Something you ate, the doctor said."

"Yes, arsenic on the rocks." He suddenly grabbed her by the shoulders and said firmly, "Gabby, you'd do it again if you thought you could get away with it, wouldn't you?"

"Darling, whatever do you mean?" Gabby feigned innocence.

"There's something about you," he said as he let go of her. "If ever a man had grounds for divorce..."

"But can't prove them," she replied.

"Your time will come, you'll slip up one of these days," Casey told her.

"Think so?" she asked defiantly.

"If I live long enough," he answered. "I hear that hanging is very uncomfortable incase you get anymore ideas." He turned to leave and added, "Don't let the ghosts and ghouls disturb you."

"Darling," Gabby replied, "the only ghoul in the house is _you_."

* * *

Casey entered the living room and his five guests turned at the sound of his arrival.

"Good evening," he said as he walked in, "I'm your host, Matt Casey. Since we're all strangers to each other, why don't we get acquainted with a drink?"

Christopher Herrmann walked over to him and said, "Mr. Casey, I'd advise you to call this party off right away, the ghosts are already moving and that's a bad sign."

"Let me apologize for my wife, she'll join us later. Let's go over the rules of the party, shall we? The caretakers will leave at midnight, locking us in until they return at 8 o' clock in the morning. Once the door is locked, there's no way out. The windows have bars that a jail would be proud of, and the only door to the outside locks like a vault. There's no electricity, no phone, no one within miles, so no way to call for help. So if any of you decide not to stay for the party, you must let me know before midnight."

"I'm interested in your reasons for this uh, party," Peter Mills commented, and added as he glanced around, "aside from pleasant company."

"Ghosts, Doctor. I think everyone wonders what they would do if they saw a ghost, and now my wife's given us an opportunity to find out."

"Well, ghosts being only creations of hysteria, your party should be a success," Mills said, a bit condescendingly.

"Mr. Herrmann here promises us genuine ghosts," Casey answered.

Herrmann nodded grimly as he accepted his drink, "Seven so far, maybe more before morning. Four men have been murdered in this house, and three women."

"You certainly plan your party very well, Mr. Casey," Mills observed, "Four of us are men, three are women...there's a ghost for everybody."

"Herrmann...why don't you take us on a tour of the house?" Casey asked. "Wasn't there a man who threw his wife into a wine vat or something?"

"That was in the cellar, there's been a murder almost every place in this house," Christopher said as they put down their drinks and he led them through the house.

Down in the cellar, which was also faintly lit by shimmering candles hanging on the walls, Herrmann showed them a trap door and went over to the wall and turned the crank that pulled the cables to open it. "All this belonged to a Mr. Norton, who didn't die here, he was electrocuted later. He did a good deal of experimenting with wine, but his wife didn't think it was any good." The vat door opened all the way, Herrmann locked the cable in place and joined the others who stood around the edge and saw their blurry reflections staring back at them as the liquid in the vat shimmered and rippled. "So he filled the vat with acid and threw her in. It's a funny thing, but none of the murders committed here were ever ordinary, just shootings, or stabbings...they've all been sort of wild, violent, and different."

"You mean there's still acid in there?" Sylvie asked.

In answer, Herrmann went over towards the wall and found a mousetrap that had claimed a recent victim. He stood at the edge of the vat, pulled the spring open and dropped the deceased rodent into the liquid, which started to sizzle and foam.

"Destroys everything with hair and flesh," Herrmann answered, "just leaves the bones."

Sylvie subconsciously took a step back and raised a hand to her mouth. Everyone looked on in awe and horror as a small skeleton rose to the surface of the acid. Herrmann turned the crank the other way and closed the vat.

Matt Casey self consciously laughed as he suggested moving the party back upstairs. One by one everyone left, until it was just Kelly and Sylvie. Kelly closed the door before she could leave.

"How'd you get invited to this party? What'd he tell you?"

Sylvie sighed and answered, "Mr. Casey said everyone would get paid $50,000."

"But nothing about being locked in?" Kelly inquired. "He just made a deal with me on the phone, but nothing about having to stay."

She turned and looked at him. "Aren't you going to stay?"

"If I don't, I lose $50,000," he answered.

The blonde woman merely nodded in agreement.

Kelly looked around the cellar and commented, "Boy, I've never seen so many doors." The wall was lined with them, all antique ornate wooden doors that all looked the same. If somebody wasn't familiar with the layout, it was an easy guess they could quickly get lost down here. Kelly went to one door and opened it and peered in. "Closet," he said, and closed the door and moved to another. A remainder of the previous owner's bootlegging days. "Bottles." Whole shelves lined with empty wine bottles. He closed the door, and moved to another one, opened it, looked in...then stepped in.

Sylvie raised an eyebrow in question, "Does it go anywhere?"

The door swung shut behind Kelly and Sylvie heard the bolt set, just as the one had upstairs. Sylvie grabbed the doorknob and tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. She pounded on the door and called Kelly's name...then a sudden breeze blew the candles out.

* * *

Sylvie frantically ran into the living room where everybody was seated and pleaded with them, "Please help me, Kelly's gone, and there's a ghost!"

"A ghost?" Casey repeated as in disbelief.

"You see what I mean?" Mills asked, as if to prove his earlier point.

"Please, come on!" Sylvie begged as she ran out of the room to lead the way.

One by one everybody got up and followed her out of the room.

"Did she say Kelly's gone? Gone where?" Leslie inquired.

They followed Sylvie back down to the basement, where the candles over the doors were re-lit. She ran to the door Kelly had disappeared behind and told them, "We'll have to break it down, it's locked!" To prove her point she pulled on the knob, and the door opened.

"Locked?" Mills repeated.

Casey stuck the wick of a taper candle into the fire from the one over the door, and when it lit he shielded it from a breeze that could put it out, and they stepped into the room, a room that went nowhere, just four walls, and Kelly sprawled on the floor, alive, conscious, alert but slow to respond.

"Are you alright?" Matt asked as they helped the dark haired man to his feet. The dim light from the candle showed a bloody cut over his eye.

"I must've..." Kelly was dazed, "must've bumped my head..."

"Well the only way you could bump your head in here, would be to run head-on into the wall," Peter Mills observed, "you didn't do that, did you?" Without waiting for an answer he suggested to Severide, "Let's get that looked at."

The excitement died down and one by one everybody left the cellar, until this time, the only two people remaining were Leslie and Herrmann.

"I wonder why they didn't kill him?" Herrmann asked, more to himself than to her.

Shay looked at him curiously, "Who?"

Without answering, Christopher told her, "He didn't bump his head, they _hit_ him."

Leslie shook her head in confusion, "_They_?"

The two looked at each other, and without a further word they followed the others back upstairs.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: This storyline was originally going to be 2 chapters, but I reworked it a little and found enough material for 3.

Kelly had gotten his cut bandaged by Dr. Mills in the living room, as their host questioned Sylvie.

"When you came in you said something about a ghost," Matt said.

"There _was_ something," Sylvie insisted.

"What did it look like?" Casey asked, in a tone that slightly implied he was humoring her.

"Well..." she tried to explain, "It was wearing a black thing that went all the way to the floor."

Everybody took this in as they chose, Dr. Mill's response was to ask her, "Weren't you a little frightened at the time?"

"Well, yes," Sylvie timidly answered.

Peter Mills told their host, "That, Mr. Casey, is hysteria."

With a straight face and a deadpan tone, Casey replied, "Well, Doctor, how do you explain what happened to Kelly, was that hysteria too?"

Mills didn't answer, and instead told Kelly, "You better get that checked in a day or so."

Christopher Herrmann made his way over to Casey and said ominously, "The ghosts are coming closer, Mr. Casey."

"You really believe in your pet ghosts, don't you, Herrmann?" Casey inquired.

Herrmann looked at him with a grim expression and answered, "Before the night's over, you will too."

As the others talked, Kelly and Sylvie left the living room.

"Someone or something was in that room when I was in there, but where? And if the door was locked, how did it get out? What you saw might've been a ghost, Sylvie, but when it was in there with me it was no ghost," Kelly told her.

Sylvie scowled at him. "You don't believe me."

Kelly couldn't resist a small chuckle, "Well how can I?"

Sylvie stormed off without a word and headed up the stairs to find her room where she'd be staying the night. At the top of the landing she stopped and saw a dark haired woman in a dressing gown offering a friendly smile.

"I'm Gabriella Casey," she introduced herself. "You must be Miss Brett." She led the way to a room across the hall and told the blonde woman, "This is your room."

"I doubt I'll spend much time here," Sylvie said.

"It's going to rain, the perfect atmosphere for my husband's party," Gabby told her. She turned and asked the younger woman, "What were you doing wandering around by yourself?"

Sylvie rubbed her arm apprehensively and answered, "I was downstairs with Kelly...Mr. Severide," she corrected herself. "I just left, that's all."

Gabby shot her a warning look and said firmly, "Don't do it again, don't go anywhere else in this house by yourself. You're in danger, we all are."

With that, Gabby left the room the pulled the door shut behind her.

* * *

Kelly had decided to head up to his room to unpack for the night. As he turned a corner in the hallway, he encountered a dark haired woman in a dressing gown and high heels, with a seductive smile.

"I'm Gabriella Casey," she introduced herself. "Are you the doctor?"

"Uh no, I'm Kelly Severide," he answered.

"The pilot," she said, then noticed his forehead, "Oh you've hurt yourself."

"Oh, it's nothing," he insisted. "Uh, which one is my room?"

"I believe it's over here," she showed him the way. All the rooms were more or less the same, old furniture, a few candles, despite the size and the exterior appearance of the house, there wasn't anything too particularly fancy about where the guests would be staying the night.

"You were with that young girl earlier, why was she so upset?" Gabby asked.

"Oh, Sylvie thought she saw a ghost, but...I didn't see anything. I think she's mad that I kidded her about it."

Gabby's demeanor suddenly changed and she told him, "I wouldn't joke about anything else that goes on in this house tonight. Kelly...if I need help can I count on you?"

He looked at the millionaire's wife curiously, then responded, "Yeah, sure I guess so...look, what's all this about?"

"This is no party, he's planning something," Gabby told him. "I wish I knew what. He thinks big money like his can get away with anything. You know I'm his 4th wife, the first simply disappeared, the other two died. Kelly...I don't want to join them."

Severide looked at her with a puzzled expression and asked, "Well what can he get away with?"

"He has a reason for getting us all up to this dreadful old house," Gabby said ominously.

"What for? He doesn't even know us," Kelly said.

She looked at him and said, "Maybe that's exactly why you're here. My husband is sometimes insane with jealously and nothing matters to him then. Please be careful."

"Would he hurt you?" Kelly asked.

With barely a pause, Gabby answered, "He would kill me if he could."

She left the room and closed the door behind her, and saw the shadow of her approaching husband, and quietly rushed over to her own room, and promptly sat down at the vanity and started brushing her hair, pretending she'd been there the entire time.

* * *

Casey watched his wife sitting at the vanity brushing her hair and commented, "Sometimes I lie awake nights wondering why I married you. It was rather a mistake, wasn't it?"

"You didn't marry me, darling I married _you_, unpleasant but no mistake," Gabby responded smugly.

"Hurry up," Casey said as he moved to leave.

"Matt, for the last time, I'm not going to your party," Gabby told him.

Casey looked back at her and answered ominously, "For the last time, it's not my party but yours, and you _are_ going."

"I am not," Gabby said defiantly as she continued to brush her hair. "Are you ready?" Casey asked.

"No," she answered.

Casey's hand grabbed the back of her head and jerked it back tight. "Are you ready, dear?"

"Yes, damn you," she groaned.

He let go of her and responded, "Would you adore me as much if I were poor? No, all you want to be is a lovely widow. It's almost time to lock up the house, darling, and then your party will _really_ begin. I wonder how it will end?"

Without a further word, he walked out of the room and closed the door behind him.

* * *

It was 11:45, and everyone had been gathered to the living room. Gabriella Dawson-Casey had finally made her grand appearance in a swanky black party dress, Matt introduced her to the guests. As he did, Sylvie crept over to Kelly and in a panicked whisper told him, "Get me out of here."

Kelly looked at her skeptically, "What about the $50,000?"

"I don't care, he wants to kill me," Sylvie said.

"Who?"

Brett glanced over at the blonde man and answered venomously, "Mr. Casey."

Before he could ask what she meant by that, everyone's attention was drawn to the sudden sound of a door slamming. Matt Casey walked to the front door and tested it, sure enough it was locked. He turned to Herrmann and demanded to know, "It's not midnight yet, who told the caretakers they could leave?"

Herrmann shook his head, "They _never_ leave before midnight."

"Well they've gone now," Casey said, and turned to his guests and explained, "I was about to ask you whether you wanted to stay for the party but it seems the caretakers have made up their mind for us," with a slightly nervous chuckle he told them, "We're _all_ locked in now."

The despair on Sylvie's face was obvious as she complained, "But I don't want to stay!"

Matt shook his head grimly, "I'm sorry, my dear, but it's too late now. But...we have some party favors for all of you...in these little coffins." His eyes indicated a table in the dining room, with seven small coffins laid out, one by one he opened the lids, revealing .38 caliber semi-automatic pistols inside. "This is my wife's idea, I don't mind telling you I find it quite dangerous." One by one he took one out and offered them to each of the guests. At the last one he took it out and held it to Gabby, "And here's yours, dear."

"I don't need it," Gabby replied.

"This was your idea, who knows? You may want to use it on me later," Casey said with a hint of gallows humor.

Gabby maintained a stoic expression on her face as she reluctantly took the gun.

"These are no good against the dead, only the living," Herrmann said, "throw them away, they won't be any good."

"I agree with Herrmann, though not for the same reason," Mills noted.

"Dr. Mills," Gabby said cynically, "don't you approve of our little party favors?"

"Suppose Sylvie had had a gun when she thought she saw a ghost in the cellar?" he replied.

Leslie walked up behind them and pointed out, "I don't think anyone else is going to walk around in total darkness."

Gabby laughed and said, "Oh I'm sure we're not going to go running around the house shooting each other, aren't you?"

"Who knows?" Mills responded, "Fear can make people do amazing things."

* * *

Everyone had gone to their rooms to spend the night. Though Kelly was still curious about what Sylvie had tried to tell him earlier. He waited a while to make sure nobody would come out, then he headed over to Sylvie's room and lightly rapped on the door and called her. There was no answer, he opened the door and looked around, she wasn't there. As upset as she had been, he couldn't see her leaving her room before the morning, not by her own choice anyway. Kelly charged out of the room calling Sylvie's name, and found himself back in the living room. Herrmann was there, sitting in a chair, holding a knife, wide eyed at the sight before him.

"Where's Sylvie?" Kelly demanded to know.

"They've taken her," he said, as if that somehow made sense, "In a little while she'll be one of them."

In two steps Kelly stood over Herrmann and grabbed him by the neck. "If you know where she is you better tell me now!"

"She's gone," Herrmann told him, "She's gone with them, and there's nothing you can do."

From somewhere in the house, they both heard the high pitched scream of a woman, a short lived scream, soon given way to sounds of struggling to breathe. Kelly ran out of the living room and to the front hall and looked up.

A rope was tied to the banister, and a woman's legs dangled limply in the air.

Kelly saw Peter Mills appear at the banister on the top floor with a look of horror on his face and he immediately moved to untie the rope.


	5. Chapter 5

A/N: The final piece to this storyline. Most of the dialogue is verbatim though heavily condensed from the film, but a few small changes were made.

Mills carried the dead woman's body to one of the empty rooms and laid her out on the fourposter bed, Kelly was right behind him, feeling sick and in a state of shock.

Suddenly Matt Casey appeared in the room and inquired, "Sylvie?" then happened to look at the woman lying on the bed.

Gabby.

"She's dead, Mr. Casey," Mills said, clinically as doctors did but with a trace of remorse as well. "Your wife hanged herself."

Casey stepped away from the bed, his eyes wide and a look of horror on his face. "Suicide."

Kelly felt like his head was spinning, and he left the room and started down the hall to his own room to try and make some sense of what just happened. As he did, he looked down the hall, and at the end there was a dark curtain that spanned the ceiling to the floor, and towards the bottom he could see the curtain moving, somebody behind it? Who? He started down the hall towards the curtain, and as he reached the corner he heard a frantic voice whispering, "Kelly!"

He turned and looked and saw Sylvie, looking panicked. For a moment he forgot what had just happened and was relieved to find her alive. "Sylvie!"

She grabbed him and quietly pleaded, "Kelly hide me, please hide me."

"What's the matter?"

"Hide me!"

He looked around to make sure no one was there and rushed her to his room and locked the door behind them. Sylvie just about collapsed in a chair by the table and hysterically told Kelly, "He tried to kill me! He grabbed me and choked me and put me in that room, and then he went away and left me. He thought I was dead."

"Who?" Kelly asked her.

Sylvie sucked in a shaky breath and answered, "Mr. Casey."

"Are you sure about that?" he asked.

She half shrugged, "I don't know, it was dark, but it must've been him."

The wheels in Kelly's head started spinning, "Has anyone seen you since he left you?"

She shook her head. "I heard some people in that room, but I went by and nobody saw me." She stood up to pace the room. When she did, Kelly told her, "Mrs. Casey's dead."

Sylvie turned her head and looked at him in disbelief, "How?"

"Casey said she committed suicide, but I think somebody killed her."

"Him?" Brett asked.

Kelly nodded, suddenly the pieces were all starting to fit. "He tried to kill you, and he did kill his wife."

"How can you be so sure?" Sylvie wanted to know.

"She tried to warn me, asked me to help her," Kelly said, and told her, "I think he's going to try and kill one of us next. Now there must be a way out of this place and I'm going to find it and get the police before he does. If he thinks you're dead, he won't bother looking for you, so you just lock yourself in here and keep quiet, if I find a way out, I'll come back and get you."

He went towards the door, and picked up his gun he'd discarded on the dresser. He looked back at the blonde woman and told her, "If you have to, you use it."

Kelly stepped out into the hall and looked back to the curtain. He went to it and pulled it open. There was a room, small, sparsely decorated with a chair and candles on the wall. The wall at the end of the room looked different than the others and Kelly realized the paneling was different. It was almost like a door. He felt his way along all parts of it, and felt a switch move, and he watched in silent awe as the wall slid open into a doorway leading to an unknown room. Kelly stepped in, then immediately heard the door sliding shut behind him. He turned around, it was too late, he was shut in, he pounded on the wall, trying to get the door to reopen, but to no avail.

* * *

Peter Mills returned to the room where he had placed Gabriella's body, he locked the door behind him and pulled the curtains open on the bed.

"It's almost over, darling. Every detail was perfect."

Gabby breathed, then lifted her head so her neck was aligned normally again, and opened her eyes. Then she sat up, rubbed her neck and asked, "What's happening? What time is it?"

"We've done it, Gabby, the perfect crime," Mills told her.

Gabby looked at him with wide eyes as she stood up and asked, "Has she killed him?"

"Not yet, but she will."

"Where's Sylvie now?" she asked.

"On her way to the cellar, so scared she'll shoot the first thing that moves."

"And Matt?" Gabby asked.

"On his way to the cellar as well," Mills answered. "A hysterical girl accidentally shoots somebody, who could ever think that we'd planned it that way? That we drove her to it? She is convinced that Matt murdered you, she thinks he attacked her in the cellar and not me, and now Sylvie's almost completely out of her mind with fear."

Gabby latched onto Mills and the two kissed. When they pulled away, he told her, "When you hear the shot, come downstairs." And with that, he left to execute the final move of their plan.

* * *

Sylvie cautiously entered the cellar and glanced around. Kelly had never come back and she'd decided to try and find him, she'd taken his gun and made her way through the house, never encountering anyone else but never finding Kelly either. This seemed like her last resort. She looked to the door where Kelly had disappeared earlier, and wondered.

Then the candle above the door went out, and Sylvie felt her heart racing. One by one the candles on the wall above all the doors went out, leading all the way back to the doorway leading to the cellar stairs. Then, the footsteps made their way down the stairs. Sylvie could hear them, she knew somebody was coming, she willed herself not to panic. She waited until she could actually hear the footsteps in the room, and she turned around gun in hand.

Matt Casey was there, and he saw the gun, and was afraid.

"No, don't!" he told her.

Sylvie gripped the gun in both hands and pulled the trigger. Casey clutched his chest and fell to the floor in a heap.

Sylvie looked at what she'd done, dropped her gun and ran out of the cellar screaming.

A couple minutes later, Peter Mills entered the room, stepped over the body of Matt Casey, turned the crank and opened the door to the vat, then dragged Casey's corpse over to the edge. After a few seconds, there was a notable splash.

* * *

Gabby quietly made her way down the basement steps and looked around. Nobody was there.

"Peter?" she called out.

The door behind her noisily swung shut. One by one Gabby saw all the doors in the basement closing themselves. What next drew her attention was a bubbling sound coming from the acid pit. She walked over and felt her eyes widen in fear as something rose to the surface. A skull emerged from the acid, followed by its neck, and shoulders, and chest. The entire skeleton rose to the surface and _stepped_ onto the floor and came at Gabby.

A voice spoke, and her heart felt like it was going to burst out of her chest. It was the voice of her dead husband.

"At last you've got it all, everything I have, even my _life_. But you're not going to _live_ to enjoy it. Come with me, murderess," the skeleton somehow commanded of her as it reached its hand out and touched her shoulder, "come with me!"

Gabby screamed and moved away from the skeleton, not realizing she was backing herself towards the edge of the pit. The skeleton shoved her and she fell in.

* * *

Matt Casey stepped out of his hiding spot in the basement, winding up the controls that operated the wires on the skeleton that made it appear to be ambulatory. He stood over the pit and said, "Goodnight, Mills, goodnight, Gabby...the crime you two planned was indeed perfect, except the victim is alive and the murderers are not. It's a pity you didn't know when you began your game of murder, that I was playing too."

* * *

Sylvie had found Herrmann and Leslie and told them about Kelly's disappearance. Herrmann remembered a secret passageway that had been built into the house and took them to the room past the curtains, and between the three of them they searched for the switch to open the panel. Finally it slid open, and there was Kelly Severide.

"Kelly!" Sylvie exclaimed, "I shot Mr. Casey, he's down in the wine cellar!"

He looked at her and asked, "Is he alive?"

"I don't think so!" she answered.

The four of them headed down to the basement and all of them stopped and froze at the sight of the blonde man alive and well.

As if reading Sylvie's mind, Casey explained to her, "You didn't shoot anyone, my dear, I loaded the guns with blanks. I can tell you all now, Mills and my wife were planning to kill me. They failed. Mills tried to throw me in the vat, Gabby stumbled and fell. I'm ready for justice to decide if I'm innocent or guilty."

Without a further word to his guests, Matt Casey walked past them and exited the basement. Christopher Herrmann wandered over to the edge of the pit and noticed the acid that still had a trace of foam on top.

"Now there're nine," he proclaimed.


	6. Chapter 6

Freaks (1932)

* * *

Her name was Gabriella Dawson, and she was known as the peacock of the air. She was a beautiful woman. It had been said that a prince one shot himself for love of her. People who came to Madame Tetrallini's circus especially loved to see her trapeze act. For many it was considered the highlight of the evening around all the clowns and freaks, many of whom stood at the side entrance waiting for their cues to enter the ring. Matt Casey and Hallie Thomas stood beside each other at the tent flap, watching Gabby spin around on the trapeze. Hallie knew she was up next, she also knew that Matt had a look of awe on his face as he watched Gabby perform her act. All the men in the audience were in love with the mere sight of her. Everybody in the audience loved Gabby. Those same people looked at the likes of Matt and Hallie and their friends, and laughed. It was the way they had always lived, they had grown up in the circus, it was their home, their family, their life. The audience may have laughed at them, if nothing else then for the reason that Matt Casey stood only three feet three inches tall, Hallie was scarcely any bigger than he was, and both of them had been born into bodies that looked more like children than the adults they were, and nature had seen fit to give them higher pitched voices to match their bodies, apparently that made them even funnier to the people in the crowd.

Matt's eyes lit up as he watched Gabby on the trapeze, and he found himself commenting, "She is the most beautiful big woman I have ever seen."

Hallie looked at him, "Why Matt, how you talk, I should be jealous pretty soon."

"Don't be silly," Matt told her.

"Don't be silly? I've seen these women making eyes at you, Matt," Hallie said as she stood her full three feet four inches, dressed for the show in a shimmering pink dress with ruffled skirts for her act. With a small laugh she added, "Of course...I ain't jealous."

Matt smiled at her and told her, "Hallie, my dear, I have eyes for only one woman, the women I asked to be my wife."

They shared a warm smile. He had asked her to marry him a short while ago, then, as if luck had finally come their way, a telegram had arrived about an inheritance he would be receiving soon from a long lost relative. Hundreds of thousands of dollars, it would be enough money that they could both quit the circus and live out a peaceful life, finally settling down somewhere. So far he had only told Hallie, they had agreed they would finish the shows with the circus for the season, then they would announce their engagement and Matt's good fortune. They would miss their friends, but they knew it was just a matter of time before many of them finally left, there had been a pair of Siamese twins who had gotten married and left the circus a month earlier.

Hallie was called on for her act. She took her prop star wand and climbed on a miniature pony to ride in. Gabriella had finished her act and exited through the flap, and stood there staring at the short man gazing at her. She giggled.

Matt's smile dropped, "Are you laughing at me?"

"Why no," Gabby answered.

"Thanks, I'm glad," he replied, his smile returning.

"Why should I laugh at you?" she asked curiously.

"Most big people do," Casey answered earnestly. "They don't realize I'm a man, with the same feelings they have."

The cape that Gabby wore over her costume fell away and crumpled on the ground. Matt picked it up for her, she crouched down and let him drape it over her shoulders.

"Thank you, you are so kind," she said as she put it back on and stood back up. Their interaction wasn't missed by Hallie who sat side saddle on the pony waiting to go on. Gabby stopped over by her and ruffled the layers of Hallie's skirt, commenting patronizingly, "Nice, nice."

Hallie pointed her wand at her and replied, "Don't, don't." Then she was led into the ring.

* * *

The morning was sunny and warm and the air was full of the sounds of people enjoying themselves. The freaks from Madame Tetrallini's circus were having a grand time cavorting around in circles, some of them singing, one of them playing a harmonica, all of them enjoying the wooded area not far from where they'd put down stakes for the week's shows. Madame Tetrallini herself was a gray haired woman in her 50s, she owned the circus, she hired the acts, and she had been forced to become the mother figure for the freaks who made up her side show. They had been rejected by their own parents, shunned by society, many of them had never learned to stand up for themselves, nature had seen fit to ensure some of them couldn't physically. For all the people who paid money to see the shows every night, there were more who would try and run them off, insisting they didn't belong anywhere. Even among the customers she had heard many snide remarks about how 'such things' should've been banned, 'horrible twisted things crawling, whining, laughing,' and that they should've all been smothered at birth or locked up.

The sound of men's voices broke up the sounds of her circus folk's revelry and she saw them running towards her for protection from the two men in their 30s who happened upon them.

One was a haughty man with a cane and he looked like he was about to start hitting them, screaming at them. The other, slightly younger man, was more composed and civilly asked her, "Don't you know trespassing is the same as stealing?"

"I am sorry, sir," she insisted as the freaks clung to her, "I am Madame Tetrallini, these children are in my circus."

"Children?" the first man snorted as he looked around at the midgets and pinheads and living torsos, most of whom were clearly well past adulthood. "They're monsters!"

Brian Zvonecek was another midget. Unlike Matt and Hallie who would spend their entire lives looking like five-year-old children, he had been born into a body that physically aged like a normal person's would, the difference was he stood only 2'11 instead of 5'6 or 5'10 as all other men did. With a smug scowl on his face which had contained a mustache and a strip of black hair on his chin ever since he was 15, he clung to Madame Tetrallini's skirts and looked at the two men, almost daring them to try something. Alongside him was another freak, and one of his friends, Joe Cruz, a human torso, he had no arms or legs, his body was concealed by a wool garment that made him bear some resemblance to a caterpillar. On the other side of Madame Tetrallini, Christopher Herrmann stood on his two hands, as his body had only been developed to his torso, after that, there was nothing, and for some reason people in every town they visited had a problem with that.

The younger man was more sympathetic, "Oh your circus, I understand."

The older woman told them, "So you see, sir, when I get a chance, I like to take them into the sunshine and let them play like children, because that's what most of them are...children."

He smiled at her and responded, "Please forget what was said, madame, you are welcome to remain."

"Thanks a thousand, sir," she told him, and only after the two men were gone did she chide the people huddled around her, "Shame! How many times have I told you not to be frightened? Haven't I told you God looks after all His children?"

* * *

"Big crowd tonight," one of the acrobats told Madame Tetrallini as she and the others approached the tent that night. Once they had passed, he turned to the other acrobat and commented, "There she goes, taking them out to exercise."

"Nurse to a lot of mangy freaks," his partner agreed.

* * *

After the show was over and everything was cleaned up, everybody headed off to their respected wagons. Leslie Shay, who performed with the seals, stormed around the wagon of the circus's strongman, Jake Cordova, and grabbed up her things. She'd had a brief relationship with him and lived to regret it, now she couldn't get away from him fast enough. He stood back with his arms crossed and told her, "Forget it, maybe I was only fooling."

Leslie turned and glared at him, "Fooling? 'Come little girl, I want to take care of you', and I fell for it."

"You're not quitting me because I'm kicking you out!" Cordova told her. "And don't come around crying tonight trying to get back in. I'm through wasting time and money on things like you. Ungrateful little tramp!"

Leslie sneered at him, "Yeah, your time, but _my_ money."

She stormed out his door and walked across the grounds, encountering Kelly Severide, one of the circus clowns, stripped down to his undershirt but still in his makeup, smoking a cigar and watching her.

"What are you staring at?" she sniped. "Didn't you ever see a lady move before? I guess you've been listening to every word he said. Go ahead and laugh, it's funny, ain't it? Women are funny, ain't they? They're all tramps, ain't they? Except when you can get money out of them!" With that she stormed off back to her own wagon.

Kelly dropped his cigar and followed after her, "Hey!" He followed her into her wagon and asked her, "Who do you think you are?"

"Oh I didn't mean you!" Leslie yelled at him, "I just had to take it out on somebody!" She took a breath and calmed down a bit and told Kelly, "What gets me so sore at myself is that I fell for that big hunk of beef."

"So you finally got wise to yourself, did you? The funny thing about you women is most of you don't get wise soon enough, you wait until you're so old that nobody wants you," Kelly told her.

"Nobody _does_ most of the time," Leslie replied.

"You ought to be tickled to death you're washed up with him," Severide said.

She looked at him and said with a small smile, "You know, you're a pretty good kid."

"You're darn right I am, you should've seen me before my operation," Kelly replied with a smirk.

* * *

Gabriella gazed out the window to her wagon and saw Cordova making his way across the grounds, he called out to him and he saw her, and immediately took interest.

"Come on in," she said, "help yourself to a drink."

"That's fine," he replied as he stepped up to the door and entered.

Gabby had changed out of her shining black trapeze costume and was changed for the night into a silk floral robe, and made her way over to the kitchenette. "Feel like eating something?"

Cordova came up behind her and when she turned around he pinned her and kissed her.

"But you are strong," Gabby said, her breath pitching, "And you're squeezing me to death."

"And you like it," he responded huskily.

Suddenly they both felt the sensation of being watched, and they looked and in the door there stood one of the sideshow performers, a reported half man half woman, who looked at the two with interest, but quickly stepped away when they turned around. Cordova stormed out of the wagon, and Gabby ran over to the window and watched as the strongman punch the sideshow performer square in the face, with enough force to knock him/her to the ground. Gabby's eyes bulged, her mouth dropped open, and after a second she laughed, loudly, wholeheartedly, she let out one one gut-busting laugh at what had just taken place.

* * *

Hallie and Matt sat at a table and she caught him staring off into space again.

"Matt, you haven't been listening to a word I say," she told him.

Matt blinked, "Yes I have, Hallie."

"Then what was I saying?" she asked him.

"You were saying...you were saying," he furrowed his brow, "What were you saying?"

"I was saying you must not smoke such a big cigar, your voice was very bad at tonight's show."

Matt pursed his lips and rested his tiny fists on the table, "Please, Hallie, don't tell me what to do, when I want a cigar I smoke a cigar. I want no orders from a woman."

"This is the first time since we've been engaged that you have spoken to me so," Hallie noted with obvious hurt, "why?"

Matt shook his head, "I'm sorry."

* * *

A few days later Leslie sat on the steps to her wagon and saw Hallie hanging up her laundry to dry.

"How's Matt, Hallie?" she asked.

"He's fine, thank you," Hallie responded unenthusiastically.

"What's wrong, Hallie?" Leslie asked.

The small brunette woman turned around and walked over to Leslie's wagon, "Nothing, only...that Gabriella woman...Matt...I can't say."

"She's after Matt, isn't she?" Leslie asked.

"Yeah, always smiling by him now," Hallie sneered. "Why is it we women always have to go through this?"

"I guess it's always been that way," Leslie answered. "And I guess it always will be that way."

"Yeah, and by me," Hallie said. "She has no shame. Always when I can hear it she says to him, 'Many thanks my darling, for the flowers, thanks my darling for this, and thanks my darling for that'. Always something he has given her."

"Don't worry, Hallie," Leslie said. "He doesn't love her."

"Yes, but she keeps after him," Hallie explained, "That's why I worry."

* * *

Brian Zvonecek opened a bottle of wine and poured a glass for himself and a glass for Allison Rafferty, a woman who had been born with no arms. She was seated on a cushion with one leg sticking straight out for him to prop the glass between her toes. As he prepared the drinks, she told him, "Gabriella ain't one of us, she'd spit on Casey if he wasn't giving her presents."

Otis turned with a gleam in his eye and said, "Let her try it, let her try doing anything to one of us."

"You're right," Rafferty said, "she don't know us, but she'll find out."

Brian carried the glasses over and placed the stem of one between Allison's toes. "There you are."

With a small nod, she tilted her head down and raised her leg up to drink.

* * *

One of the clowns to the circus stood by Joe Cruz and talked about how well the show had been going in that part of the country, all the while he laid out a piece of cigarette paper, opened a box of snuff, poured in the right amount, rolled it, lit a match, lit the cigarette and popped it into his mouth, all just using his mouth and the muscles in his face.

"Catch our act tomorrow night, we got something new," Joe said as he puffed on his cigarette.

* * *

Hallie had gone to Matt's wagon to speak to him, but once she actually got there, explaining how she felt about what was going on proved to be too difficult for her, but Casey thought he understood.

"Hallie, I'm so sorry, I don't want to hurt you," he said.

She looked at him and told him, "If you could be happy, Matt, I wouldn't care."

"But I am happy," Matt told her. "Never in my life was I so happy."

Hallie shook her head sadly, "No Matt, you only think it. For you, she cannot bring happiness."

Matt was starting to lose his temper, "You think because she's so big and beautiful and I'm only-"

"No, Matt," Hallie told him. "To _me_, you are a man, but to _her_, you're only something to laugh at. The whole circus makes fun of you and her."

"Let them laugh!" Casey sneered, "I love her. They can't hurt me!"

"But Matt," Hallie said somberly, "They hurt _me_."

"Hallie, I've been a coward, I should've come to you in the beginning. Please forgive me."

She nodded sadly, "Yes, Matt, I forgive you, it's only that you should be happy that I want."

* * *

Hallie knew that Matt was too lovestruck with Gabby to see what was really going on, so she decided to confront Gabby to try and make her listen to reason. she went to the trapeze artist's wagon, knocked on the door and entered. Gabby sat by the table and looked put out by the small woman's appearance.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"It's about Matt," Hallie said.

"Well? I'm listening," the tall darker skinned woman said.

"Everybody's laughing behind his back because he is in love with you," Hallie told her. "I know you just make fun, but Matt, he doesn't know this. If he finds out," it made her sick to think how heartbroken he would be, "He will never be happy again."

Gabby was smug as she replied, "What makes you think I'm just making fun?"

"You're big, and so beautiful," Hallie said.

"And Matt is so little, so cute," Gabby said mockingly. "Well, maybe I'm going to marry him."

"If you marry him," Hallie told her, "It's _you_ they'll be laughing at and stare."

"That's good, nothing like being different," Gabby said indifferently. She leaned back and said dryly, "Gabriella, queen of the air, married to a dwarp."

"A dwarf," Hallie corrected her.

"A dwarp!" Gabby insisted.

"Then it's _not_ Matt you care for, but the money," Hallie said.

She'd known that already, or at least suspected. She had seen over the weeks all the expensive gifts Casey had been spending his inheritance money on, flowers, imported perfume, a large fruit basket, a platinum bracelet, diamond earrings.

"Money?" Gabby smirked, "You little mindreader."

"Then he's told you about the fortune he's inherited," Hallie said in shock. "And he always made me swear not to tell anyone until we'd left the circus."

"A fortune?" Gabby repeated, "And fancy you knowing about it too. Well, I can't be angry with him for that."

"No, you can't do this," Hallie told her.

Gabby was smug as she told the small woman, "You wait and see."

* * *

"A fortune," Cordova said in disbelief, "I bet the little ape's worth billions."

"A fortune," Gabby repeated, "can you beat that? A fortune, and I have him like _that_. Shrewd little Matt Casey. He knew to keep his mouth shut. I could marry him...yes, he would marry me."

"Midgets are not strong," Cordova told her. "He could get sick."

Gabby looked at him through the corner of her eyes. "How?"

"It can be done," Cordova said ominously.

* * *

There was no show the night of the wedding. The center ring was used for the reception, tables stacked beside each other, Matt and all the sideshow people gathered around, Gabby and Cordova the only 'normal' people there. Matt was filled with glee at how things were going, and his friends were all making merry, singing, making music, toasting his marriage. Gabby sat beside him at the table and managed a look of tolerance.

"Our wedding night," she said feigning happiness, "What a thrill."

Casey was beaming, "Never before did I think I should be so lucky."

"Lucky? I am the lucky one, my little Matt," Gabby insisted.

Matt was beside himself, "My Gabby's happy."

"Happy? I am so happy," Gabby turned to Cordova, "I could even kiss you, you big homely brute." And she did. Matt noticed, and when Gabby turned back towards him she crooned patronizingly, "My little green-eyed monster. My husband is jealous, he loves me. Come, my little lover, drink to the happiness of your wife."

"Attention!" Brian announced to the entire table as he stood up on it and poured more drinks, "We'll make her one of us. We accept her, we accept her."

Everybody joined in and started chanting, "We accept her, we accept her, gooble gobble, gooble gobble, we accept her, we accept her, one of us, one of us, we will make you one of us."

Gabby was laughing like she was drunk, and Cordova was laughing as he told her, "They're going to make you one of them my dear!"

Then the smile was gone from her face and her eyes became cold like ice. She stood up from her chair and looked around at the table and screamed at them, "Freaks! You dirty slimy freaks!" The festivities ended then and there and everybody looked at her in awe. She threw the champagne on the ones closest to her and yelled at them, "Get out! Get out of here you filth! Get out!"

One by one everybody left the table in confusion and hurt, the pinheads, the other midgets, the torso people, everybody who had been Casey's friends when he joined the circus, slowly they retreated, unsure of what had just happened, soon it was just she and Cordova and Matt, who slumped down in his seat and told her, "Please, you make me ashamed."

"Ashamed? _You_?" Gabby replied. "Well holy jumping Christmas, can you beat that?"

Suddenly it was a team effort and both of the big 'beautiful' people were taunting Matt, Cordova grabbed him out of his chair and set him on Gabby's shoulders and she ran around the table with him riding piggyback yelling and cheering all the whole Cordova cavorted alongside them blowing a toy horn.

* * *

"Forget it, Matt," Cordova told Casey later that evening when they returned to his wagon. The 3'3 man wiped his face with a miniature handkerchief as the strongman told him, "She is sorry, I'm sorry. Didn't I tell you she was drunk? Didn't I tell you we were only having a little fun?"

"Please," Casey tried to compose himself, "I understand."

"No you don't, I tell you there's nothing between me and Gabby," Cordova said.

"Be quiet!" Gabby yelled at him, "Haven't you done enough damage for one night? Don't you know what I'm being accused of? I ain't gonna be blamed for something I haven't done."

"I don't blame you, Gabby," Matt told her tearfully, "And I don't blame Cordova...only me, myself. I should've known, that you would laugh at me."

"My sweet," Gabby told him, "I would rather fall from the trapeze and break my neck than to hurt your feelings. Do you understand now? It was only a joke."

"Our wedding, a joke," Matt said somberly, "Now I know how funny it is," a weak laugh came out of him. "Casey the midget, Casey the fool! Tell the divorce court, they'll laugh, everywhere they're laughing!"

Suddenly he stopped flailing around and yelling, and collapsed.

"You gave him too much," Cordova said.

"No I haven't, I know what I'm doing," Gabby told him, "pick him up."

* * *

The next morning the local doctor was brought out to examine Matt, and diagnosed him with a bad case of ptomaine poisoning. When Gabby asked if she did wrong giving him a tonic of mustard water, the doctor answered it may have saved his life. They put on a good show, but the people in the sideshow weren't fooled, and neither was Leslie. She confronted Cordova and told him, "You can't get away with it, I'll tell the cops."

"You would turn against your own people?" he asked.

"My people are decent circus folk," she answered, "Not somebody that'd kill a freak for his money."

The strongman stared her down and told her, "You dirty little...your imagination is getting the best of you."

"Yeah, maybe it is," Shay responded, "but cops don't have imagination, so I've been told. Don't make me have to go to them."

* * *

A week later Casey was still sick in bed and slowly recovering, he moaned and begged Gabby's forgiveness for the things he said on their wedding night.

"Nothing matters to me except for you to be well," she told him. "I must fix your medicine or I'll be late. I'll be back soon."

"I'll never forget what you're doing for me, Gabby," Matt assured her. As she was on her way out he asked her to leave the door open, she did, and a moment after she had left, Brian stepped up into the wagon and went over to the bed. He spoke quietly and told Casey, "Tonight, they'll be ready."

Matt sat up on the bed and responded, in a much stronger tone than he'd used with Gabby, "Alright, come to my wagon."

Brian nodded and left. Casey laid back down against the pillow and said mockingly, "'I must hurry now, I must fix your medicine or I'll be late, my darling'...'dirty, slimy, freaks'."

Brian headed over to where the others were waiting and said, "He's waiting."

"Fine," Herrmann said.

"Soon we'll go."

* * *

That night during a heavy rainstorm, as the caravan was making its way on to the next town, Hallie took her concerns to the one man in the entire circus who she knew she could trust, and who might be in any position to do anything about what was going on, Kelly Severide. She'd seen the way he and Leslie had gotten sweet on each other over the past few weeks, and if anybody could help, she knew it was him. Except even he didn't seem to be of much help.

"You're imagining things," he told Hallie when she voiced her concerns about what Gabby was doing to Matt.

"No," she shook her head, "Then I heard Cordova tell Gabby that Leslie knows too much."

Kelly's eyes opened wider at that. "Cordova? Leslie?"

"Yes."

Kelly nodded his head stiffly and knowingly, "Thanks, Hallie."

* * *

The rest of the freaks were gathered around Casey's bedside in his wagon, one of them played a low and melancholic harmonica, the rest just sat silently. Gabby came out of the kitchenette and told Casey, "My little, you must go to sleep, your friends better go now."

"I like them here," Matt insisted.

"No, Matt, they can come back tomorrow. I will give you your medicine and get you off to sleep now."

She stepped back into the kitchen and took out a little black bottle, poured a spoonful, then re-corked it, turned around, and saw all the freaks staring at her. Her eyes went wide and she dropped the spoon.

Casey was sitting on the edge of the bed and he demanded with a wave of his hand, "Give me that little black bottle."

Gabby's eyes were fixated on the other men surrounding Matt, Brian took out a knife out of his pocket and pushed a button, making the switchblade spring up automatically, Christopher Herrmann, used the one hand that wasn't holding him up, to reach into his jacket pocket and he pulled out a pistol, and looked ready to use it.

"Bottle!" Casey demanded as he got up.

Gabby snapped back to her senses and tossed it to him. He caught it and told her, "You got this bottle of poison, to kill!"

* * *

Leslie had been cooking her dinner when she heard a sudden noise and looked in horror as she saw the wooden panels of the door to her wagon being broken apart, kicked in by the circus strongman. She ran and grabbed an ice pick for protection. Cordova was halfway in the door, when Kelly came running up and grabbed hold of him, trying to jerk him back out. The men started fighting and both of them fell into the wagon. The wagon jerked side to side in the storm and it was all anybody could do to stay standing but it didn't stop the two men from rolling around as Cordova tried to kill Severide.

"Kelly!"

"Leslie, get out!" Kelly told her.

A sudden explosion of thunder and lightning frightened the horses and they broke into a blind run along the bumpy dirt road, the wagon jerked, then turned on its side, the driver was thrown from the cab and killed instantly. Leslie escaped out the door and ran to get help while the two men fought. A few wagons back, Gabby screamed and rushed out the door when Matt's wagon was suddenly plunged into a ditch. As she ran, the freaks also ran and chased after her.

On the muddy ground, Kelly and Cordova struggled, but Cordova was much stronger than Kelly and the clown was suddenly unable to breathe as Cordova choked the life out of him. Unbeknownst to the strongman, Brian crept up on them and threw his knife, which lodged itself square in Cordova's back. With a pained gasp, he reeled back off of Kelly, giving the choking man a chance to roll out from under him and get away. Unable to get to his feet, Cordova painfully scooted along on his knee and his hip, and looked in horror when he saw several of the freaks quietly making their way towards him, crawling under the wagon. Another midget walked towards him with a knife in hand, he turned, and saw a pinhead crawling along, another knife in hand, he looked around, midgets stalked towards him, others crawled through the muddy water, Joe Cruz, the human torso, wriggled from side to side with a big knife in his mouth, they moved slowly, but they moved determinedly, and very soon they were able to catch up to the suddenly crippled strongman.

As for Gabriella Dawson, she blindly ran through the street in the pouring down rain screaming for help, she paused once to look back and saw Herrmann, Casey, and the others running after her.

She screamed at the top of her lungs in terror.

* * *

3 years later-

The butler that maintained the mansion Casey had secluded himself to tried to reason with his employer.

"But sir, they insist on seeing you."

After leaving the circus, Casey had used his money to isolate himself from the rest of the world, including and especially his friends.

"In all these years, I've seen no one, have I not told you that? Send them away."

"Very well, sir."

Casey stood in the middle of the room and shook his head, "I can't see no one."

The butler opened the door, "Excuse me sir, you can't come in. No sir, I have my orders."

"Who's gonna stop me?" Kelly asked as he, Leslie and Hallie entered the room. "I'm in, ain't I?"

Matt turned and looked at them, and Kelly addressed him, "Oh yes you can, Matt, there's somebody here who you've just got to see."

Matt looked at Hallie, and asked her, "Why did you come here?"

"Please, Matt, don't be angry," she said. "Kelly and Leslie have been so kind to me."

"Please go away," Matt turned away from them, "I can see no one."

Hallie walked over towards him and tried to reason with him. "But Matt, you tried to stop them. It was only the poison you wanted. It wasn't your fault."

Leslie and Kelly exchanged a knowing glance at one another and decided that their work was done. It was time to let these two rekindle and give them some privacy for it to happen. With a small smile, they joined hands and quietly showed themselves out.

Matt fell into Hallie's arms, sobbing.

"Don't cry, Matt," she told him, "I love you."


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Something a little more humorous this time. Hope you enjoy!

Ghosts on the Loose (1943)

* * *

Wallace Boden entered the living room of the house where he and his fiancee Donna were going to be married that day. The place had been decorated modestly with flowers and streamers, chairs had been lined up for the family and friends, and in the corner of the room was an organ being played while his friends were rehearsing a song for the ceremony. Smiling to himself, he walked up behind the men, who didn't notice his presence until the last second, then everybody turned to see him.

"Hi, Boden," Kelly said.

He looked around the room and commented, "It's mighty nice of you guys to go to all this trouble."

"You ain't seen nothing," Kelly told him, "This is going to be the most pre-stig-ious wedding that Avenue A ever witnessed."

"Where's Donna?" Wallace asked.

"She's in the bedroom seeing which one of the curtains looks best on her," Casey answered, drawing a chuckle out of the guys.

"How do you like the place? How's it look?" Kelly asked.

"Oh it looks fine," Boden answered.

Still Kelly wasn't entirely convinced. "I think it needs a few more declarations. Hey, Otis, Cruz, Capp, get out there and rustle up some more flowers."

They agreed and were on their way out, leaving Severide, Casey and Boden alone in the living room.

"What's the matter, Boden, you nervous?" Kelly asked.

Boden laughed, "Not at all, and I thought I would be. Oh, Matt, hold onto this ring for me and don't lose it."

"I won't lose it, I'll put it in my pocket," Casey said.

"You'll lose it if you put it in your pocket," Boden told him and slightly forced the band onto Casey's finger, "Keep it on your finger, there, now you won't lose it."

Casey folded his hands in front of him and asked with a straight face, "Does this mean we're engaged?"

Boden grumbled and lightly pushed Casey's face to the side.

"Say, has the agent been here with the papers on my house yet?" Boden asked.

"Not yet," Casey answered.

"You know," Kelly said, "I wish I was a big airplane engineer so I could buy one of those houses out in the su-burbs."

"The house is a steal, Kelly, or I couldn't have bought it," Wallace responded. "I just hope there's nothing wrong with it."

Kelly furrowed his brow, "Well what makes you think anything's wrong with it?"

"It's too good to be true," Boden answered.

Kelly changed the subject, "You really think the place looks nice?"

"Oh it's fine, Kelly."

"Yeah, it'd look better with some pictures on the walls," Casey said, "Some paintings, those morales."

"It's not morales, it's morals," Kelly told him.

"I think you mean _murals_," Boden corrected them.

"That's right," Kelly said, elbowing Casey, "He threw me off, he's dumb sometimes."

* * *

Otis, Cruz and Capp had gone all over the city looking for some flowers they could use for the wedding, and were coming up empty. Then they saw a truck with a huge wreath of flowers with a ribbon on it sitting in the back of a truck, and they got an idea. Capp tied a string from the wreath to the fire hydrant at the corner. When the driver got in the truck and pulled out, the wreath fell off the truck and into the street.

"Hey mister!" Otis said in a low whisper, "You dropped your flowers!" A couple seconds later he said in his normal tone, "I guess he didn't hear me. Let's take them."

* * *

Time was drawing nearer to the wedding and the guests were starting to show up and seat themselves. Kelly went into the bedroom to see how things were going and he saw Herrmann and Mouch trying to wrestle Casey into a collar for the tuxedo they'd rented for him to wear at the wedding.

He grinned, "Well you look great, Casey, what's the trouble?"

"We can't get this collar on him," Mouch answered.

"Stand back, let me take a crack at it," Kelly said. "Get him from the back, Herrmann, now push in a little bit, take a deep breath, now hold it. I told you to hold it!"

Even with all three men, it was a struggle to get the collar to fit and all four men eventually wound up collapsed on the floor with Kelly on top of Casey.

"I got it," he said. "He's alright, get him up."

He got off Casey and the others pulled him to his feet just as the door opened and Otis, Cruz and Capp came in with a wreath of flowers to show off. Kelly was impressed, until he saw the ribbon across it. "What's that?"

"What?" Cruz asked as they looked down and saw it read 'Rest in Peace'. There was also a card attached to the ribbon.

Kelly tore the ribbon off and the card and read the message, "In loving memory to Louie the Lug from the gang. We didn't mean to shoot you, Louie, honest." Kelly glared over at the three men and asked them, "Where'd you get that?"

"On the street," Otis answered.

"On a truck," Cruz added.

"Fell off," Capp tried to fill in the blanks.

Kelly was livid. "You know that's sacre-lerious? Take it back! Guys ain't got no conscience...hey wait a minute, come here." He looked at them and said, "I don't suppose it'd be anymore sacre-lerious if we put it back after the wedding. Put them in the parlor."

"Hey that's funny," Herrmann said and pointed to Casey, "This is Louie's suit, we got it from the funeral home."

Casey's eyes bulged and he jumped off and started undoing the jacket.

"What're you doing?" Kelly asked.

"I ain't wearing this!" Casey answered as he shrugged the sleeves off his arms. He stopped and said, "I bet I know what killed him, his collar choked him to death." With that he whipped it off.

"What're you taking the collar off for?!" Kelly demanded as he grabbed it and choked Casey to get it back on, "What's the matter with you? Grab him!"

When Wallace entered the room he saw the five men in the process of getting up from the floor and pulling Casey up with them.

"Are you guys ready yet?" Boden asked, "What's the matter?"

"Casey's neck was a little too big for the collar, but it's okay now," Kelly answered.

The door opened and Tony walked in, "Hey Boden, there's a fellow outside who says he needs to see you."

"Who is he?"

"I don't know, but he said it'll just take a few minutes," Tony answered.

"Alright, I'll be right back," Wallace told the men.

* * *

The face that met him out on the stoop wasn't one he was expecting.

"Grissom, I haven't seen you for a while. Where've you been?"

"I've been busy," the gray haired man answered, "I know you're in a hurry and I won't take up much of your time. I want to buy that new place from you on Elm Street."

"I just bought it myself," Boden said.

"I know you did and I know what you paid for it," Grissom replied. "I represent a party that...they are willing to double what you paid for it."

"What?" Boden asked in disbelief, and blinked. "Why do they want my place?"

"What difference does it make? They want it, they're willing to pay for it."

"The answer's no," Boden turned to head back in.

"Now wait a minute," Grissom stopped him, "you can't take a bride in a house like that."

"Well suppose you tell me what all this mystery about that house is," Boden said.

"Haven't you heard? You know that big estate next door?" Grissom asked. "It's haunted."

Boden busted out laughing.

"Alright, laugh," Grissom was stone faced as ever, "But why do you think they sold it to you so cheap?"

"Well who lives next door?" Wallace wanted to know. "And why do they want my place?"

"Well let's just say they're eccentric, they don't like neighbors," Grissom answered.

After a few more minutes of discussion, Boden was starting to reconsider.

"So you can see why you don't want to take your wife to a place like that," Grissom said.

"No, I guess I don't," Wallce conceded, "But she has her heart set on going there tonight."

"I understand," Grissom took a wad of cash out of his pocket and said, "Here's the money for the deal, why don't you take your wife away for a few days, explain about the house when you get back? Here, when you get ready to close the deal, write me at this address, I'll get in touch with you."

Boden looked at the address, "This is the place next to mine, huh? A haunted house."

"Look Wallace, just a word of warning, when you do get back, write to me, don't drop in."

"Alright, I'll see you later."

* * *

After the reception as the guests were leaving, Donna, the happy bride, mentioned the new home she and Boden would be moving into. Wallace took that opportunity to tell her, and the remaining family, "We're not going out there tonight anyway, I made some extra money so I thought we'd take a little trip first, you know, a honeymoon."

Kelly raised one eyebrow curiously and leaned over to Casey and asked him, "You know anything about that?"

Casey stood with his arms folded against his chest and answered, "It's news to me."

Boden continued, "Well the place needs an awful lot of fixing up, I hope you don't mind."

Donna smiled at her new husband, "No, darling, anything you want to do is fine with me."

As they made their way through the living room, the guys saw a piece of paper fall out of Boden's pocket. Casey picked it up, "322 Elm Street."

"That must be the new house," Kelly said. And he got an idea.

* * *

"Well, I think that's the place," Kelly said as he pulled up in front of the house with everybody packed into his car. There were only two houses on the block, next door was a little cottage style home with a sign in front that said 'House For Sale - Completely Furnished'. Between the two properties there was an old white wooden gazebo with fancy lattices around it.

He looked at the large, dark, empty house overrun with foliage around the porch and '322' by the door and commented, "Don't look very cheerful though, does it?"

"It certainly does not," Cruz answered.

"Come on, get your tools, we got a hard night's work," Kelly said as he threw the door open, "We want to get this place decorated tonight, not tomorrow."

Everybody walked up onto the porch with cleaning supplies and Kelly tried the door but it wouldn't open. "Hey Casey, gimme the key."

"What key?" Casey asked, "You're lucky I got the address."

"That's a little detail we overlooked I guess," Kelly said, and shifted gears, "Gimme that hammer." He smashed the window pane beside the door and reached through to unlock it. "Remind me to put a new glass in there in the morning."

They entered the house and found themselves plunged into complete darkness. Everybody lit a match and the combined illumination was enough for Kelly to find the light switch over on the other wall.

"That's more like it," he said as the room lit up, "let's look in here."

They went into the next room, he turned on the lights and they found a sparsely furnished living room covered in dust.

"Boden wasn't kidding when he said this place needs fixing up," Kelly commented. "Look at that, no drapes, no curtains, no lamps, no knickknacks, no nothing, where're we gonna get some furniture?"

"How about the house next door?" Casey asked. "There's a sign outside that says completely furnished."

"What do you want to do, buy another house?" Kelly asked.

"No, just buy the furniture, let someone else buy the house," Matt answered.

"That's good, that's the best idea you've had in ten years," Kelly said. "Let's go take a look."

Everybody dropped their stuff and headed out the front door and went to the little house next door.

"That house is pretty big for just two people," Kelly noted, "This looks more like the kind of place Boden was talking about."

Everybody gathered on the porch and Kelly tried the door and was relieved to find this one opened. As they went in, he found the lights, turned them on, and saw the place was indeed fully furnished, matching chairs and sofa, heavy wooden chair and tables.

"This is really nice, lamps, drapes, books, everything," Kelly said, "I wonder why he bought the old house next door instead of this one?"

* * *

Wallace and Donna had just gotten checked into a hotel when the desk clerk said there was a message for him. There was no name on the message, only an unfamiliar phone number with an address that looked like another hotel. Wallace found the phone booths and made a call to the number and found himself talking to Mrs. John G. Elwood, the previous owner of the house he'd bought. She gave him the same spiel that Grissom had about the house being haunted, things that she had seen and heard for the last six months, and expressed her outrage at her own husband for not warning Boden about it when he sold him the place. When Wallace made it clear that he wasn't taking her seriously, she dropped a bombshell on him by telling him she'd called the police earlier that night, and they should be on the way to the house at that very moment. When he hung up, he gave Donna the news and told her, "I think we should go out there right now."

"Right _now_?" Donna repeated.

"Yep." He went back to the front desk, grabbed their bags and told the clerk, "You got a nice hotel here, we sure enjoyed our stay."

* * *

Everybody had just returned to the large old house with all the furniture from the house next door and as they set it all down in the living room, Kelly was dishing out the orders to everybody, "Capp, you and Tony start putting up the wallpaper over there, Herrmann and Mouch, you guys get the drapes set up, Casey, you can sweep, dust off that rug."

"What're you gonna do?" Casey asked.

"I gotta think, I'm the supervisor," Kelly answered.

Otis got stuck with dusting the place. He went along the walls and brushed over them with a large feather duster, he came to a bookcase over by the fireplace, dusted over it, then climbed on top of it, to step over onto the mantel to dust the framed portraits high up on the wall. The dust flew off the surfaces and into clouds and the next thing Otis knew, somebody sneezed. He turned his head and asked, "Who's that?" but got no response. He turned to the front again and his eyes widened when he heard an ominous growling sound coming from the face in the portrait, and in fact could see him breathing. Otis yelped and fell off the mantel and fell back onto the couch in a dead faint, which drew the attention of everybody else in the room, so much so that nobody noticed the man in the portrait moving out of view and an old portrait of a woman being shut in place in the frame.

"What's the matter, the altitude too much for you?" Kelly asked as Otis came around.

Otis's eyes were wide as he frantically kicked his legs on the couch and pointed up to the painting, "No-no-no, that picture up there, he's alive!"

Everybody looked and saw the portrait of a Victorian era woman seated and posing.

"First of all it's not him, it's a her," Kelly pointed out.

Otis looked up at the painting and did a double take, his eyes widened and he told Kelly, "Please believe me, her was a him a minute ago."

"You're seeing things," Kelly said.

"Seeing things? Man, I heard him growl!"

"Everybody get back to work," Kelly told the others.

Casey resumed sweeping, and glanced up at another painting on the wall, one of Napoleon in a long coat, he swept some more, then looked up again, and his eyes widened when he saw the picture had changed and Napoleon had taken his coat off. Casey dropped his broom and went over to Kelly to have him look, but when Kelly turned his head the painting was back in its original state.

"What's going on here, you going goofy too?" Kelly asked, "_Don't_ answer that, just go over and lie down next to Otis."

Reluctantly, Casey went over and sat on the couch beside Otis, and murmured to him, "Are you sure you saw what you saw?"

"Sure I'm sure," Otis insisted.

"So am I," Casey remarked, "That's what I tried to tell Kelly. I'm sweeping, I look up at Napoleon and he's got his coat on, then I look up and..." Casey looked to the painting again. Words were beyond his ability so he settled for hitting Otis in the shoulder to make him look. Both men saw the picture had changed again to something entirely different. Both men yelped and ran over to the other side of the room, Casey jumped on a chair and started climbing up the wall with Otis following behind him.

"Where're you going?" he asked. He looked up at Casey, who was sitting cross-legged on a mounted moose head and asked him, "What're you doing up there?"

Casey didn't answer at first, then he pointed to the painting across the room and said, "Look, now he's in his long underwear!"

Kelly looked, and again the painting depicted Napoleon in a long coat. He turned back and glared up at Casey and told him, "Get down here, if I have to come up and get you I'll stab you with one of those horns."

Hesitantly, Casey climbed down. He looked at the painting, and once again hit Otis in the shoulder, he looked too, and both of them seeing the picture returned to its original state, let out a brief scream of shock.

Casey tried to convince Kelly, "I saw it and Otis saw it too," he turned to Otis and asked him, "Right?"

"Nothing else but."

"You're imaging things," Kelly told them, "It's all in your mind."

All of them felt their hairs standing on end at the sound of a sinister laugh from somewhere in the house. Everybody was looking around the room and Otis had the presence of mind to ask Kelly, "Now..._whose_ mind is that in?"

"Come on," Kelly said, a little uncertainly now, "Let's find out what it was."

One by one everybody reluctantly left the living room, headed out to the hall and piled up the stairs. As they reached the second floor everybody stuck close to one another as they wandered through the dark hall.

"You see anything?" Kelly asked.

"No," Cruz answered.

"No," a deeper voice said.

Everybody stopped and looked around.

"Who's that?" Cruz asked.

"Who's that?"

Cruz's eyes doubled in size as he asked, "Who's that who said 'who's that' when I said 'who's that'?"

The voice called back, "Who said 'who that' when I said 'who that'?"

Kelly stepped to the front, "What's the matter with you? That's just an echo."

"Just an echo."

"See?" he told the others, "There's nothing to be scared of."

A deeper voice called back, "_That's what you think!_"

"Well here we go again!" Otis said as everybody turned and ran for the stairs.

What none of them knew was that the police had just pulled up outside and found the door locked. As everybody ran down the stairs frantic, some of them screamed out "Open the door! Open the door!" and were met with a response from the cops demanding, "Open the door!"

"Uh-oh, there goes that echo again!" Otis said as everybody ran into another room and found themselves scrambling down to the cellar.

Kelly turned on the lights and they saw the basement was adequately furnished with desks, chairs, cupboards and tables. Casey leaned against a table and felt something move. He saw some contraption on the table with a large handle.

"What's that, Severide?" Otis asked.

"Looks like a printing press," Kelly answered.

"Boden never said he had a printing press," Casey saw a pile of pamphlets on the table by the machine and picked one up and read the headline, "How to destroy the Allies." He laughed and chucked it behind him, then everybody scrambled to the table for a look.

Kelly opened another pamphlet and read, "What the New Order means to you. How to destroy the Ally? That sounds like spies."

"Yeah, you think Boden's mixed up with them?" Herrmann asked.

"I don't know," Kelly said grimly, "This is his house."

"Boden wouldn't have anything to do with the Nazis," Casey said.

"I hope not," Kelly murmured.

The others looked at him, "What do you mean?"

"Well he told us not to come out here, remember?" Kelly asked.

"Hey, you're right," Cruz said.

"And he had a lot of extra dough when he left tonight, where'd he get that?"

"That's probably where this stuff comes in," Herrmann said.

Casey shook his head, "I can't believe it."

"Well we're not sure it's Boden's, we're only guessing," Kelly said, "But if anybody else found that stuff here, I know what they'd think. Maybe we better get it out of here."

"Where're we gonna put it?" Tony asked.

"Why don't we put it in the house next door?" Casey asked.

"That's a good idea," Kelly said, "Put it in the house next door, let's move it."

* * *

They left the printing press in the living room of the house next door and were on their way out when they saw the two cops at the old house, and moving under the cover of darkness, they crept off the porch and hid in the bushes by the gazebo before anybody could see them. They heard one cop say to the other, "Let's see if the people in that little house know anything," and head over. As that happened, they saw headlights from a car approaching.

"Hey," Casey whispered, "It's Boden and Donna."

"Boy we sure got that press out of there just in time," Kelly said.

They saw Boden and his wife get out of the car, and the cops went down to them and started talking.

"Who are you?"

"I'm Wallace Boden and this is my wife, Donna, we just bought that little house next door."

"Uh oh," Kelly felt the color going out of his face, and knew everybody else was feeling the same way. "We better get that press back out of there, let's go."

They ran around and slipped in through the back door while the Bodens spoke with the police. They got the printing press and quickly moved it out between the two yards as they saw the cops were leaving and Wallace and Boden were heading in the front door. They went back over to the big house and took the printing press back down to the basement and left it there, then they headed out the front door.

"Kelly!" Boden's voice drew their attention. They headed over to the little house and Severide asked Boden, "What're you doing here?"

"That's what I was going to ask you," he told the men.

"It's a long story," Casey answered.

"We were decorating that house," Kelly pointed.

"We thought it was yours," Casey said.

"Then we found a printing press with a lot of Nazi propaganda in the basement," Kelly added.

"We thought it was yours," Casey repeated.

"So we moved it over here," Kelly told him.

"Yeah, then we found out _that_ was yours," Casey said.

"So we moved it back again," Kelly explained.

"Nazi propaganda?" Boden repeated in disbelief, "So that's why they didn't want us to come out here. Why didn't you call the police?"

"We thought it was yours," Casey said.

"Is there a phone next door?" he asked.

"Yeah," Kelly answered, "but _that_ ain't yours."

"Well come on," he told them.

* * *

Boden called the police and a few minutes later the patrol car returned and he tried to explain the situation to the officers. They went into the old house, went down to the basement, and to everybody's shock, the printing press was gone.

"It was here just ten minutes ago!" Kelly exclaimed in disbelief.

"It just got up and walked away, huh?" one of the cops asked.

Casey offered, "Well if ink can run I guess a printing press could walk."

"That's right," Otis said, "you can still see the ink on our hands."

"That dirt could've been there for six months," the other cop said, then turned to his partner and added, "Let's get out of here before _we_ start seeing things that ain't there."

The two cops went up the basement steps and everybody followed after them trying to talk some sense into them, all except Kelly and Casey who stayed behind and tried to figure out what had happened.

Casey leaned against a bookcase and felt his body jerked and saw as the shelf spun around and revealed a large hole in the wall leading to a tunnel.

"Hey Kelly!"

Severide looked at the secret passage and said, "I bet that's how they got that press out of here. You follow me."

They stepped inside and decided to see where it went. They walked along a ways and then came to an entrance, and as they were about to go in and see where it led, they were jumped from behind.

* * *

Boden was getting nowhere with the police, when he turned and happened to see the lights on in his new house.

"I turned those out when we left," he told everybody.

"Now the lights are turning themselves on and off," one cop said sarcastically, and turned to his partner, "Come on, Pat."

"Go ahead if you want, I want to see for myself, come on, Donna," Boden said.

The others started to follow, Herrmann commented to one of the cops, "Yeah, I want to find out for himself too."

Everybody marched over to Boden's house, the police bringing up the rear. They stepped in the front door and everybody stopped at the sight of the printing press standing in the middle of his living room. Now the cops seemed interested, they went over to it, one picked up some of the pamphlets and asked, "What's this?"

Otis offered, "Looks like the same things we all were telling you about."

"Yeah, but what's it doing here?" Wallace asked.

The second cop told him, "That's something _you_'ll get a chance to explain and you _better_ think fast."

Boden almost looked amused, "You don't think this belongs to me?"

Otis shook his head.

"This is your house, isn't it?" the first cop asked.

Otis nodded.

"Yes but..."

Tony leaned over to Capp and murmured, "We better find Kelly and tell him."

"You ain't kidding," Capp replied, and the two men slipped out the front door unnoticed.

They were halfway over to the other house when they heard muffled sounds of a struggle. They traced it to the gazebo that stood halfway between the two houses, Tony knelt down and found a trap door in the floor. He pulled it up and he and Capp went down to find out what was going on. Stepping quietly through the dark tunnels, the noises grew louder and they were able to make out the sight of Severide and Casey being manhandled by four larger men and forced along the tunnel. Just as Tony and Capp moved to pounce on them, a door came down and locked them off from the room. They tried to bust it open but with no luck, so while Capp stayed to keep an ear on things and keep trying the door, Tony ran back to get the others just as the police were leading Boden out of the house to the patrol car.

"Hey guys, come on!" he called. "You too, Boden!"

Everybody came running and followed him over to the gazebo where he quickly explained what was going on with Casey and Kelly.

"Alright, but this is the last time I believe any of you," the first cop said, and told his partner, "Beat it back over to the house and go down to the basement, I'll look down the tunnel."

Tony and the cop went down the trap door while Boden, Donna and the others went over to the old house. Boden stopped long enough to stop Donna and told her to stay where she was and told the guys to stay with her and make sure nothing happened, then he went with the officer down to the basement.

In the tunnel, Tony was racing back to the wall with the cop following right behind him. When they came to the wall they beat on it to try and get it open, and the sound reverberated to the wall at the end of the basement in the old house.

"What was that?" the cop asked.

"There must be a door here somewhere," Boden realized, "Must be some way to get it open."

They felt around the wall looking for something, Otis came in behind them and helped them search. They finally found a latch at the bottom of the wall that activated the door and raised it up, and they stepped into the room where Casey and Severide were bound and gagged to two chairs and standing behind them were four older men, one of them was Grissom. There was little time for this to sink in for Wallace however, at that moment the opposite side door also raised up and Tony, Capp and the other policeman came charging in. The four men escaped up a stairway while Matt and Kelly were untied, and as soon as they broke loose they led the chase after the members of the Nazi ring.

Up on the ground floor, Herrmann happened to look into the next room and saw the bookcase was starting to open up from the wall and he saw somebody getting ready to come out. He and Mouch stepped back, had Donna back up to the corner where she'd be safe, and grabbed a mop and broom from the cleaning supplies they'd left there, and stood just behind the doorway and got ready to hit whoever came into the room.

One man came through the curtains and Herrmann bopped him on the head and knocked him down, a few seconds later another man stepped through and Mouch let him have it and also knocked him on the floor. A third man followed after them and Herrmann let him have it, and finally Grissom came through and Mouch walloped him and he joined the pile of bodies on the floor.

The curtains moved again and they both swung and both hit Kelly on the head just as he entered the room. With a dazed look Severide collapsed on top of the four other men. When they realized this, they dropped the broom and mop and ran. A few seconds later, Casey entered the room and saw Kelly sprawled on top of the four bodies. Boden and the cops entered the room just as Casey pulled Kelly to his feet and held one of Severide's hands high over his head and announced, "The winner and new champ!"

* * *

Boden and Donna sat on their couch with an annoyed look on their faces as Wallace dryly commented, "What a honeymoon."

They were piled into their new living room with all the guys, who sat around in silence with equal looks of disdain on their faces.

Kelly finally broke the silence and said to Casey, "You always have to do things the hard way. Everybody else gets plain old ordinary measles, but you gotta go out and dig up German measles."

The blonde man with a face full of tiny red rashes that resembled swastikas, looked at Kelly and asked him, "What're you picking on me for? I didn't know those guys were Nazis."

Kelly moved to hit him but Casey cut him off, threatening, "Uh-uh-uh, I'll throw it on you."

Kelly scooted up the back of the chair to get away from him and said, "Don't, Casey, I apologize."

The doctor who'd been there to examine everybody told the houseful, "And don't forget, you got 7 days more to go," and pulled the door with the Quarantine sign shut behind him on his way out.


	8. Chapter 8

Spooks Run Wild (1941)

Kelly Severide and his friends were a group of underprivileged adolescents on their way to a mountain camp, when the bus they'd taken had gotten a flat; while the driver fixed the tire, he and his friends Matt Casey and Andy Darden decided to look around the town before they completely left civilization. They walked along the sidewalks to the largely vacant stores and stopped when they reached a sweet shop and looked in at a stunning blonde waitress cleaning the counter, and all three of them rushed in to get served.

The young woman wearing a paper cap and white apron looked at the three guys who sat down on the bar stools and asked them, "What'll you have?"

Andy was clearly dumbstruck as he absently replied, "I don't know, give me a menu." She handed him one and without even looking at it pointed and said, "I'll have some of that."

She looked and laughed, "That's the name of the town."

"Oh," Andy blinked, still with a goofy grin on his face, "I knew that. I'll have a root beer."

The waitress looked at Kelly and asked him, "And what'll you have?"

Without missing a beat, Kelly answered, "You."

She took a step back and told him, "You're very fresh."

"I hope your bread is just as fresh," Kelly said. "What're you doing tonight?"

"I've got date," she answered.

"What about tomorrow night?" Kelly asked.

"I've got a date," she repeated.

"What about Wednesday-Thursday-Friday and Saturday night?" he persisted.

"I've got a date," all four of them answered in unison.

"Well that kills that week," Kelly noted. "Say, what's your name?"

"Leslie," she answered.

"Leslie," he played the name on his lips and commented, "Leslie and Kelly, kind of fits."

The music on the radio suddenly stopped and an announcer came on and grabbed the attention of all four people, "We interrupt this program for an important announcement to the listeners near Hillside and Colton, all citizens are warned to be on the lookout for the monster killer, who is believed to be in the vicinity. This maniac has left a trail of three inhuman murders, and is believed heading upstate. We return you now to your program."

The music came back on, Leslie turned and went to fix the drinks, Kelly looked at his two pals and said curiously, "Monsters?"

* * *

That night the guys were all getting ready for bed in the cabin they were using at the mountain camp, when suddenly the lights went out and plunged them all into darkness.

"Man it sure is dark in here," Capp observed.

Tony laughed and replied, "I'll say, I can't even see you."

Capp remarked, "I can't even see _myself_."

"Hey," Christopher Herrmann said to Mouch, who was sitting up reading in the next bunk, "How can you read in the dark?"

"Huh?"

"How can you read in the dark?" Herrmann repeated.

Without missing a beat, Mouch answered, "I went to night school."

Everybody grumbled to one another as they got into bed and settled down to sleep, but that idea was dashed to hell a short while later at the sound of a wolf howling somewhere in the distance.

"What's that?" Andy asked.

"That's just an owl," Kelly answered.

"I know it's a howl, but who's howling?" Andy wanted to know.

Casey listened to it and observed, "If that's an owl, it's got four legs and fleas." He paused, then turned and said to the man in the bed next to his, "Hey Kelly."

"What?" he tiredly asked.

Casey hesitated, then told him, "I'm not scared or nothing, but remember what we heard about that guy on the radio?"

"So?" Kelly asked around a yawn.

"Well suppose he was prowling around here. Don't you think we ought to stand guard or something?"

"Nah," Kelly answered as he pulled the covers up, "just go outside and set a couple bear traps for him."

* * *

Kelly woke up some time later to the sound of everybody else in the cabin snoring. He didn't know how much time had passed but he quickly got out of bed, already dressed, and tiptoed for the door. He heard the sound of covers being thrown back as Casey and Andy jumped out of their bunks and asked him, "Where' we going?"

"I know where you're going," Andy said, "You got a date with that girl, Leslie."

"So I got a date with that girl, Leslie," Kelly parroted mockingly, "so what?"

"So we got a date with her too, and we're gonna keep it," Andy told him.

"Nothing doing, I'm going alone," Kelly said, and headed for the door.

"That makes three of us going alone," Casey replied as they followed him. One by one they slipped out of the cabin, Andy slammed the door behind him and it woke up the others, who decided since their leader was gone, they would go where he was going.

"DIDN'T I TELL YOU TO BE..." Kelly caught himself and got the last word out in a quiet whisper, "Quiet?"

The three friends sneaked off into the night and tried to make their way to town working through the dark grounds of the wooded area, where they kept encountering ruts and ditches, mosquitoes, and low limbs on the pine trees that hit them. Suddenly Casey stopped in his tracks and the other two knocked into him.

"What are you looking around for?" Kelly demanded to know.

"Remember what we heard on the radio about that ghoul, that guy that sucks all the blood out of you?"

"What would he be doing out here, sucking the sap out of the trees?" Kelly replied. "Come on, let's move."

They made their way to a clearing and passed through a barbed wire fence when they heard somebody running through the woods and ducked behind a tree to see who it was, and saw a gang of people making their way through the wire fence. They tackled the newcomers, until they realized it was the rest of their gang from the cabin.

"Why aren't you guys back at camp?" Kelly asked as they got off of one another.

"Why should we stay at camp when you guys go to town?" Herrmann asked.

"Hey, get me out of here!" Capp said as he struggled, hung up on the wire.

Kelly rolled his eyes and said, "I can see my date with Leslie is going to be about as private as the fish market on Friday."

With no further argument, the whole lot of them continued on their way. They wandered through the dark for a while before several members of their party concluded that they were lost, and if they could actually find their way back to the camp they'd go, but as it was they decided to press on. After a while the trees cleared out and they came to a dirt road that led straight to a cemetery.

"Hey, a graveyard, we can't be far from town," Kelly observed, "Come on, let's cut across, maybe it's a shortcut to town."

Some less willing than others, all of them entered past the wrought iron gate standing open and roamed through the graveyard, glancing at the tombstones of various shapes, sizes and designs. Out of nowhere, a man appeared holding a lantern high in one hand and a shotgun in the other and yelled at them, "Stop!"

"After you catch me I'll stop!" Kelly said as he jumped out of the way, as did the others.

The man pulled the trigger and Casey got hit and went down. The others grabbed him and dragged him out of the line of fire and got lost in the darkened rows of graves. The man didn't follow after them, Kelly and Andy pulled Casey to his feet and slung his arms over their shoulders to carry him along as they looked for a way out. The cemetery seemed to run on forever, finally they found a spot where part of the land was gated off and where the next wall should've been there was nothing. Andy looked up and exclaimed, "Hey, there's a house!"

"Where?" Kelly asked.

"Up there on top of the hill," Andy pointed.

Up through a mess of trees and weeds and grass that was a couple feet tall, there was a spooky old house with no lights on.

"Come on, let's go," Kelly said.

"Hope there's somebody there," Andy added.

They trekked through the tall plants that grew on the hillside, as they reached the top and went up to the house they saw it was a very old stone house that looked like it was made out of bricks the size of their heads. Just as they reached the door, before they could knock, it opened. Wearily, they stepped in and found themselves in a room that was loaded with antique furniture and chandeliers that would've looked very fancy were it not for the accumulation of cobwebs and many years' worth of dust covering everything. A door opened and out stepped a tall dark haired man dressed in black clothes, and when he spoke to them, he had an unusual accent they'd never heard before.

"Good evening," he announced, "I must apologize for the state of my home, it has been without occupants for many years."

Kelly bypassed any formalities and gestured to the wounded man leaning on him for support, "Look, a buddy of ours has been hurt, we was walking through the cemetery taking a shortcut into town and somebody took a potshot at him."

"How unfortunate," the man said. "He should lie down."

Kelly blinked, "Don't you think we should get a doctor?"

"Perhaps later," the man told them. "Come with me."

Uncertainly, they followed him up the stairs to the second floor, where the hall was filled with suits of armor and antique tapestries hanging on the walls, also covered in spiderwebs. The man opened a door and led them in to a bedroom, that looked like it had had some recent cleaning unlike the downstairs, there was a fourposter bed by the wall that looked suitable to sleep on, where they eased Casey down to rest.

"Well?" Kelly asked the man. "How about calling a doctor?"

The man stared down at the wounded young man and answered ominously, "There's no telephone here." He raised his head to look at Kelly and added, "However, I have some knowledge of medicine, I will treat your friend. I suggest you wait outside...or better still, in my study."

Kelly could tell the man wasn't going to put up with an argument. In a less than convinced tone he commented, "Okay..." turning to the others he added, "Come on."

Anxiously, everybody huddled close to one another one their way out, nobody willing to be left alone anywhere in the dark spooky house. When they were gone, the man closed the door, then lit a candle to better examine Casey, and lifted up his shirt to observe the wound.

* * *

After a while the guys got tired of waiting and decided to find out what was going on, so they made their way back up the stairs and saw the man coming out of the bedroom and closing the door behind him.

"How's Casey?" Kelly demanded to know.

"Casey?" the man repeated, confused, then blinked. "Oh your friend, he's resting now."

"Well we want to see him," Kelly said.

"I suggest you do not disturb him," the strange man replied.

"We ain't gonna 'distoib' him, we just wanna see him," Kelly moved past the man and opened the door, and everybody piled in.

They stepped over to the bed and found Casey laid out with his eyes close and unresponsive to their presence.

"Hey Casey," Kelly tried to rouse him.

"I think he's dead," Herrmann said.

"Not at all," the man said as he came up behind them. "Merely asleep. Your friend was in pain and I found it necessary to give him a mild sedative." He pulled back the sheet and pulled up the side of Casey's shirt and showed them, "See? I have given him the proper treatment."

"Well how're we gonna get out of here with him like that?" Kelly asked.

A grim look formed on the man's face as he told them all, "Leaving is out of the question, your friend must not be moved. You will be my guests for the night, come, I will show you to your rooms."

"That's fine, but one of us is going to stay here," Kelly stated. "Capp, you keep Casey company."

Capp did a double take, "Who, me?"

"Yeah you, we'll take turns, I'll relieve you later," Kelly told him as the others followed the man, "Alright, Mister..."

Instead of providing his name, the man told the group of young men, "You will notice, this is a very old house, in some respect a very strange one."

"You ain't kidding," Herrmann responded as they walked out one by one.

* * *

Kelly and Tony had been paired up in one room, Mouch got one to himself, and Andy had been paired with Herrmann. The rooms were pitch black, but the guys had brought some matches with them. Andy struck one and found a candle in a brass holder, he lit it, and held it up high over his head to look around the room. It was just as filthy and dingy and full of cobwebs as the rest of the house had been.

"You know," he turned to look at Herrmann, "I like this room much better in the dark, and I _don't_ like the dark."

* * *

Kelly tensely paced back and forth in the room, Tony was sprawled on his stomach across the side of the bed and asked him, "Why don't you lay down, Kelly, and try to get some sleep?"

"I don't feel much like sleeping," Kelly said as he continued pacing, "You know, there's something funny about that guy, besides I'm worried about Casey."

"Yeah, so am I," Tony replied.

Kelly stopped pacing and decided, "Well let's go see him."

They headed to the door and just as Kelly opened it, Mouch, Herrmann and Andy piled in.

"Where're you going?" Andy asked.

"We're going to check on Casey," Kelly answered.

"Good idea, let's all go."

The lot of them marched across the hall and knocked on the door. Capp hopped up from the chair beside the bed and asked, "Who's that?"

"Us," Kelly answered through the door.

"Who's 'us'?" Capp wanted to know.

The door opened and Kelly answered, "Us is me!"

"What's the matter with you, Capp?" Tony asked.

Capp shook his head, "Ain't nothing the matter with me, it's him," and pointed towards Casey.

Kelly went over to the bed and saw Matt was still in a dead sleep.

"He been like that the whole time?" Kelly asked, concerned.

"Man he ain't moved a muscle!" Capp told their leader, "I think he's dead!"

Kelly tried to wake Casey up but received no response, physical or verbal, he couldn't even see Casey breathing. Kelly turned to the others and said, "That clinches it, we're going downstairs to have a showdown, you guys come down with me, Capp, you watch Casey, and keep your eyes open."

Capp blinked, "Man you don't think I'm gonna stay in here for one minute and _close_ them, do you?"

After they had gone and shut the door behind them, Capp went back over to the bed and spoke to the blonde man, "Casey, you ain't dead, is you? Say you ain't. If you can't say nothing, just shake your head."

There was no response from Matt. Capp sat back at the foot of the bed and waited for something to happen. A couple minutes later he heard a sound and turned his head and saw Casey had opened his eyes and was starting to sit up. He hopped off the footboard and went around to the side of the bed, "Casey! I'm glad you're awake, we've been worried about you."

Without a word, and just a blank look in his eyes, Casey drew back the covers, stood up and headed towards the door, leaving Capp utterly confused. "Man, don't you hear me talking to you?"

Casey opened the door, stepped out and closed it behind him, leaving Capp feeling even more confused. "What's the matter with him? Hey!" He grabbed the doorknob, but he couldn't get the door to budge. He'd been locked in.

* * *

Kelly and his friends had gone downstairs to confront the man who lived there, but they searched through all the rooms and didn't find anybody. But they found a study with several large old books laying open on the table. Curious at what he'd been reading when they arrived, Kelly bent over the table and read the open pages.

"That clinches it," he told the others, "this guy's the monster, we're getting Casey and getting out of here."

Herrmann thought of something, "Hey, maybe he's done something to Casey, and he'll be like he is."

"I don't know about that," Kelly replied, "but we're leaving before we find out."

Andy asked him, "Hey, do you think that guy's dead like it says?"

"What's the matter with you, can't you read?" Kelly snapped, and bent over the book again, "It says here that 'In the night he prowls about seeking new victims, and in the daytime he sleeps in a coffin'."

"Well let's wait till daytime," Andy suggested.

"We ain't waiting for nothing!" Kelly told him, "We're going right now!"

They all moved as one towards the door, and on the way Tony commented, "Remind me not to come back here during my vacation."

They left the study and rushed back up the stairs and came to the bedroom door and found it locked. Kelly banged on the door and yelled to the other side, "Hey, open the door!"

"I can't!" Capp replied, "It's locked."

"Where's the key?" Kelly asked.

"I don't know, I ain't got it," Capp answered.

Kelly and the others decided to bust it open, but just before they did the door eerily creaked open of its own accord. Baffled by this, they stepped into the room and found Capp was there, but Matt was gone.

"Where's Casey?" Kelly asked.

Capp shook his head, "I don't know."

"What do you mean 'I don't know'?" Kelly asked, "what'd he do, just get up and walk out?"

Capp nodded, "That's exactly what he did and I don't mean nothing but, he got up from that bed, walked out of this room, didn't even look at me or say a word. I think Casey's been turned into a zombie."

"A zombie?" Kelly repeated in disbelief, then shrugged it off, "Zombie or no zombie, we're gonna find Casey and get out of this-"

The next word was cut off as everybody realized the strange man was standing in the doorway. He did a show of acting surprised as he asked the young men, "Where's your friend?"

"That's what we want to know, what'd you do to him?" Kelly demanded to know.

"I?" the man asked. "I did nothing. In his condition, your friend should not be moved. I suggest you retire, and I'll look for your friend."

Kelly seemed to be mulling this idea over, and he mulled it over until he saw Tony get down on all fours right behind the man, and Kelly punched the man in the face and sent him toppling head over heels over Tony and landed on the floor. Kelly, Andy and Mouch all tackled their host until the others got out, then they hotfooted it out of the room and slammed the door shut behind them, locking it in the process. With that taken care of, they split up to search both floors of the house to find Casey.

Working by the light of the matches they were carrying, Andy and Kelly searched rooms on the second floor, and found one with what looked like two coffins in the middle of it. Reluctantly they tried opening them but found they were locked. They left the room and caught a glimpse of Casey walking through a passageway across the hall and followed after him. As soon as they crossed the passageway however, the room was empty.

* * *

Capp searched through rooms on the first floor. He came to one that was pitch dark, and feeling his way through the darkness he found a table with a candelabra on it, and lit the candles that shone through fancy glass globes. The room was well furnished, all antiques, and it was strangely void of any dirt or cobwebs. All of that however, did little to ease the tension of wandering around a strange house looking for a missing friend who'd had God knew what done to him, and the prospect of having a bloodthirsty murderer locked in upstairs. To take his mind off that, Capp started talking to himself as he looked around the place.

"This sure is a nice cozy room, some mighty nice folks must've used to live here, and still got the furniture, that's what my mom used to say." Tugging on the neck of his shirt, he added under his breath, "I wish I was with her right now." He looked around once again at the old tapestries hanging on the walls and the antique desk with books and small busts organized neatly on it, then turned to the front again and about hit the floor when he saw a large white spider dangling over his head. He took a step back and looked at it in awe, "A white spider...that must be the ghost of the black widow." He shooed it away, then took a step away from the table, and he caught something out of the corner of his eye. He looked back and saw that the tobacco jar that was resting idly on the table, had moved from its spot and apparently in time with him. To test, he took another step, and saw the jar glide a couple more inches across the table. He turned and addressed it as if it were a person, "Look here, tobacco can, don't bother me, I don't smoke, I ain't bothering you..."

Now he was starting to feel like he was losing his mind, and that thought was only reinforced when he took another couple steps and saw the jar slide further across the table. Steering into the skid of insanity he looked towards the ceiling and murmured, "Oh please, mister spider, come back and web me a ladder so I can get _out_ of here, right _now_."

He took another step, and the tobacco jar slid across the table once more in time, then the lid popped off of it and a skull was hanging to the bottom of it as it floated in mid-air.

"That does it, I'm getting out of here," Capp declared as he ran out of the room.

* * *

The man who lived there finally woke up and managed to escape from the room he'd been locked in, and searched the top floor of the house but found nobody, so he went downstairs, and stopped dead in his tracks at a horrifying sight before him.

A skull, wearing a long black cloak, moved across the room towards him, its jaw moving as its spoke, "So, you couldn't stay away, could you? The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime. You don't remember me, but 20 years ago in this very house, I was a living being. I had flesh on my bones, blood flowed through my veins, but you, you scared the health out of me."

The man was terrified as he pleaded with the skeleton, "I was never in this house, not until tonight! You have made a mistake!"

"It is you who have made a mistake," the skull responded, "For years you have wantonly taken the lives of millions, so tonight, I'm going to take yours!" It laughed maniacally as it moved ever closer to him.

The man screamed in terror and fled down the basement stairs. Once he was gone, the cloak was shed and revealed Kelly was sitting on Capp and Tony's shoulders with the skull in his hands. With that settled, they joined the others and rushed upstairs to search for Casey. They found themselves back at the bedroom he'd been placed in earlier, and they all came to a sudden stop at the sight of their friend sitting up in the bed wide awake.

"Casey!" Kelly rushed over to the bed, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah I'm alright, what happened to you guys?"

"What happened to _us_ he wants to know," Andy scoffed.

Kelly explained to him, "You've been running around the house like a guy walking in his sleep and we've been chasing after you."

"Yeah?" Casey asked. "Last thing I remember is that guy giving me a pill and I went to sleep. I sure had some weird dreams though."

"Well can you get up?" Kelly asked.

"Sure I can get up," Casey answered as he demonstrated.

They turned to leave the room and everybody instead backed up as they once again came face to face with the man they'd scared off, now he had a cold, determined look on his face.

* * *

An hour later, the front door of the house was busted in as a posse of men from town rushed in with guns and flashlights, having concluded based on the radio reports and eyewitness accounts, that a strange man had come into town and was residing at the old house, and everybody had come to what seemed to them the natural conclusion that he was the monster killer the police were looking for. As the men rushed through another door, in the darkened room they were met with the image of Kelly Severide's head mounted on the wall like a trophy. A light came on, and Kelly stepped down from the mantle, draped in a black cloak with a gray collar around his neck. Also in the room were all his friends, and their mysterious host, all seated at an antique table.

One of the men who ran the mountain camp told them, "You boys can thank your lucky stars we got here just in time."

"Yeah, why?" Andy asked.

Another man in the group pointed to their host and said, "That man's the monster."

Kelly walked over to their host and addressed the group, "If you'll listen I'll tell you the whole story, we was all going to town and took a shortcut through a cemetery when some jerk takes a potshot at Casey and clips him, so we brought him up here to get him all fixed up, at first we thought this was a haunted house, but it's not, and if it is, he ain't haunting it because we thought he was the monster too, but like I said he's not, just a magician, and a very good one at that, he's come up here to work on some new routines."

* * *

A couple days later a party was held at the house where Nardo, the magician, performed some of his new tricks for his captive audience, all the guys from the mountain camp, the adults who ran the place, and Kelly's girlfriend, Leslie, who Nardo promptly made disappear in a magic cabinet. He pulled a set of black curtains on the box, then pulled them open, and Leslie was gone. Amidst the crowd's applause, Kelly got up from the couch and told Nardo, "That was the easiest trick I've ever seen, I think I can do it."

"You can?" the magician humored him. "Would you like to try?"

"Certainly, just give me five seconds and I'll have her," Kelly answered as he stepped into the cabinet.

Nardo agreed and pulled the curtains shut on Kelly. A few seconds later he and everybody else in the room could hear Severide's excited exclamation, "I've got her professor, ooh have I got her."

With a knowing smirk and a wink, Nardo waved a wand, pulled the curtains back, and everybody laughed at the image of Kelly stepping out of the box with Capp in his arms. Kelly appeared oblivious to this for a moment, then did a slow double take, then seemed to grow faint, and promptly dropped Capp on the floor, and then passed out beside him, much to everybody's amusement.


End file.
